Portrait of a Hero
by J0
Summary: AJ has the summer to complete a writing project for his Honors English class. He chooses to create an intimate portrait of the SVU hero who saved him by interviewing the detective's family and colleagues. For entertainment only, no profit is being made.
1. Title Page

Portrait of a Hero

By

Albertus Jordan Lancaster  
Honors English 10  
(Mr. Sidel)

September 17, 2012

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,  
ye have done it unto me. – Matthew 25:40


	2. Me

Lancaster – 1

**Me**

My name is Albertus Jordan Lancaster, Jr., but everybody calls me AJ, except for my girlfriend, Candace, who calls me Al and my ninth grade homeroom teacher, Mrs. Murdoch, who still calls me Mr. Lancaster because she refuses to use nicknames and I refuse to respond to Albertus. It is a compromise we reached so she wouldn't have to break her stupid personal rule and I wouldn't have to keep serving detention for ignoring her.

I am seventeen years old and in the tenth grade, which makes me a lot older than any of my classmates because everyone knows, the honors kids are never held back. I wasn't held back, either, but I took a year off school twice for reasons which I will explain later.

My younger brother is named Horatio Heathcliff Lancaster, which is the only thing in the world that can make me feel good about being called Albertus Jordan. His friends call him Ray Ray; Mrs. Murdoch is just going to love that. He is fourteen and just starting the sixth grade for the same reasons that I am just starting the tenth at seventeen. He is at least as smart as I am, maybe smarter, and he'll question everything, especially if he thinks someone is feeding him a line. (You have four years to get ready for him, Mr. Sidel, unless he decides to take the tests to skip a grade. I don't think he will, though. He's lost a lot already in his lifetime, we both have; and I don't think he'll want to leave his friends behind.)

My parents, David and Julia Lancaster died when their private jet crashed into the side of a mountain in Colorado on their way to the Sundance Film Festival. Yes, Ray Ray and I are rich, but I'd rather have my mom and dad than just their money. I was six and Ray Ray was barely three years old when they died. My uncle, Jason Sheridan, would tell you he adopted us because it makes him sound noble and generous, but it's a lie.

Adoption implies that you welcome someone into your home and treat them as part of your family. Uncle Jason lets us live under his roof and gives Consuelo, his housekeeper, enough money to feed us, clothe us, and love us. Ray Ray and I can go weeks, sometimes months at a time without seeing him, which is fine by us because he is an ass. He is part of the reason I am writing this story. Maybe if he had been there for Ray Ray and me when our parents died, I wouldn't even have this tale to tell.

After my parents died, I kept getting into fights at school. I can remember being angry all the time, so angry I would just see red. I even hit a teacher once. It was so unfair, I thought, I was the only one in my class with no mommy or daddy or grandma or grandpa to take care of me. Uncle Jason didn't count because he was never around. After I gave Mr. Lucas, the art teacher, a black eye, Consuelo finally convinced Uncle Jason to take me out of school for a while. She home-schooled me for the next year and a half and

* * *

Lancaster – 2 

gave me the time I needed to grieve properly. I was almost eight years old when I went back to school in the second grade.

Things went all right until I started middle school and joined the soccer team with some of my friends. All of them had dads or big brothers who showed up at the games, practiced with them on the weekends, took them out for pizza when we won and for ice cream when we lost. I just had Uncle Jason, who sent his driver in the Mercedes to pick me up and drive me straight home after every game. I had always missed my parents, but I felt their absence more than ever at the soccer games. I especially missed my dad then.

I went online to a soccer chat site to find someone who would actually care about my game, and that is where I met NYUSoccerFreak. He is the reason I took that second year off school. His real name was Henry Micah Briggs, and he was a thirty-eight year old construction worker from Staten Island, not a twenty year old college student. Consuelo had a doctor's appointment the day I met him, so I was taking care of Ray Ray. Uncle Jason could have afforded to hire a nanny so Consuelo didn't have to leave us on our own when she was busy, but Ray Ray was nine and old enough to mind me, so he didn't see the need. While I was playing, Ray Ray sat with my friend Tyler's mom and dad, and after we won the game, Henry came over and introduced himself as my new "Big Brother."

I thought I was being smart by arranging to meet him at the soccer fields. There would be a lot of people around, and if he was a weirdo, I could just catch a ride with one of my friends. He seemed all right, though, and when Mr. and Mrs. Johnson invited us to have pizza with them, Henry agreed. He said Ray Ray and I could ride with him and we eagerly climbed into his van. When the Johnsons turned right, Henry turned left and before we knew it, Ray Ray and I had been kidnapped. We must have been that sick freak's wet dream come true. I was just the age he liked, and by the time I got to be too old for him, Ray Ray would be just old enough.

The Johnsons called the police, and Consuelo gave them our pictures, but Uncle Jason barely even realized we were missing. Our case fell to the Special Victims Unit because Ray Ray and I were children. Detective Elliot Stabler was the lead investigator.

He saved our lives.


	3. The Visit

"_Hi, AJ," Elizabeth says, and she steps aside so I can enter the room. _

_She's a gorgeous young woman with long, honey blonde hair and full, round breasts. She has a killer smile and sparkling blue eyes that I like to imagine she gets from her dad. Even though she is three years older than me, I could see myself asking her out if we had met under other circumstances._

"_I haven't seen you in a while. Where have you been?"_

"_Around," I tell her. "I'm usually volunteering at the community center in the afternoons so I've been coming by in the mornings all summer."_

_She nods. "That's why we've been missing each other. I usually run errands in the morning."_

"_Yeah. So, uh, how's he doing?" I ask, gesturing towards the figure in the bed._

_It isn't like Hollywood where the patient lies there sleeping and spontaneously wakes up weeks, months, or even years, later feeling as though he's just had a good, long nap. Depending on when I come to visit, his legs might be encased in inflatable plastic boots that automatically fill with air and deflate to prevent deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, which in normal English, is called potentially lethal blood clots. The rest of the time, when someone isn't exercising his limbs to keep them flexible and help slow the atrophy of his muscles, his arms and legs are splinted to keep him from curling into the fetal position. The nurses usually put a sturdy pair of shoes on his feet for twelve hours every day to prevent a crippling condition called foot drop. A feeding tube snakes from a bag on a chrome stand behind the bed through a pump and into a hole in his stomach under the covers, and a catheter drains his urine into a bag. He drools constantly, and the nurses come in to turn him and check his diaper every two hours._

_Elliot Stabler was shot while rescuing Ray Ray and me from Henry Micah Briggs. He's been in a coma ever since. Oddly enough, for a bullet in the head, the injury wasn't particularly severe. It just happened to damage something that has cut him off from the world ever since. I started visiting him when I was fifteen because it was the only way I had to express my gratitude. I try to drop by twice a week just to let him know I'm staying out of trouble and trying to be a good person._

"_He's getting better, AJ," Elizabeth tells me. _

_I can't see it, but I would never say so in here because Liz believes he can hear everything that's going on around him. When I cast her my doubtful look, though, she understands._

"_He's scoring sevens and eights on the GCS now," she explains. "Three months ago, he was averaging only a six. Last year, it was just five, and before that it was only a three or four."_

_I nod. Over the years I have learned a little about his condition, so what she says makes sense to me. The GCS is the Glasgow Coma Scale. It scores a patient's eye, verbal, and motor responses to determine the depth of the coma they are in. A score of three is brain dead. Fifteen is fully awake. Elliot is still in a "severe coma," but he is "getting better."_

_I sigh. Progress is measured in inches over the course of years._


	4. Research Begins

"_Excuse me, I'd like to see Captain Cragen, please?" I say to a tall man in a dark suit. He has graying black hair and thick glasses._

_He sits at a desk, frowns up at me as if he thinks he should know who I am, and nods before picking up his phone to dial the captain's extension and telling him he has a visitor._

"_I can make an appointment for later if he's busy," I offer, knowing it was rude of me to just show up._

"_What's your name?" he asks me._

"_AJ Lancaster."_

_He repeats my name and his eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the response he gets. He says, "Sure thing, Boss," into the phone and then hangs up. Pointing across the squad room, he tells me, "Right through that door. He's happy to meet with you now."_

"_Thank you, sir," I reply, and nervously make my way across the room. The door is closed when I get to it, so I knock. Captain Cragen doesn't call for me to come in but opens the door for me himself._

"_AJ, please, have a seat," he says cordially and gestures me into one of the chairs in front of his desk. He surprises me by taking the one next to me and turning it so we are facing rather than sitting behind his big desk, which is piled high with dozens of files and reports. There is a candy jar on the corner of the desk which seems incongruous with the man and the gravity of the job he does._

"_I . . . I don't know if you remember me, sir . . ." I begin nervously._

"_Of course I do, AJ," he says kindly. "How have you been?"_

_I nod. "Good, really good," I tell him, and for the next few minutes we catch up on all the things that have happened in my life since we last met. I end by telling him I will be starting the tenth grade in September and will be taking a schedule of all honors courses._

"_Good for you, son," he says warmly. "I'm glad to hear that. So, what can I do for you?"_

_Now I have to explain this project._

"_I have a summer project for my English class," I begin. "I have to write a personality profile of someone who has had a great influence on my life. I can't interview Detective Stabler directly, and it's not like there have been any books written about him; so I was hoping you'd let me interview some of the people who worked with him."_

_He frowns, looking a little doubtful._

"_I have Elizabeth Stabler's permission, if that helps. She said you could call her any time."_

_After my visit with Elliot, Liz and I had talked in the hallway. I explained the project to her, and she had gotten all teary-eyed to think that I wanted to write about her dad. She promised to help me in any way she could._

_The captain smiled and said, "Well, his partner isn't with the squad any more," he began. "She's a lieutenant in homicide, but I can put you in touch with her. Of course, if you want to get started right now, Detectives Munch and Tutuola are in the squad room."_

"_I appreciate that, Captain, but actually, I'd like to start with you."_

_He looks a little shocked and fidgets nervously, but he agrees. "What do you want to know?"_

_I shrug, not really sure myself. "Just . . . describe him for me. Tell me what he was like when you used to work with him."_

_His eyes come unfocused for a moment, and then he smiles slightly. Finally he breaks into a full grin showing his teeth and everything, and I know Elliot was special to him._


	5. The Boss: Captain Donald Cragen

Lancaster – 3

**The Boss  
Captain Donald Cragen**

Describe Elliot Stabler. That's a tough one. I loved him like he was my son, but I feel like I barely knew him.

He was an odd combination of contradictions. He was a good Catholic family man, but he never spent enough time with his family because he was always working. He didn't care whether the victim was a prostitute or a debutant; he gave every case all he had. He'd be the first one to bust a colleague's chops for shoddy work and the first to forgive an honest mistake. He had a hard time confiding in others, which made losing Alphonse to retirement especially painful; but he was always willing to listen to a friend. He didn't delegate responsibility well and did a lot of legwork and research he could have farmed out to junior detectives, but anything a friend or colleague asked of him, he would do if he could. He was a patient and thorough investigator, but he was known for losing his cool in interrogation. He was absolutely and undeniably an alpha male, but he was a good team player who had no problem with women in the work force, even as detectives in the NYPD. He was fiercely protective of his partner, but never really doubted her ability to back him up. In a lot of ways, he was two sides of the same coin.

I remember the first time I met him. I was replacing his former captain and it really pissed him off. It wasn't anything personal; he just didn't handle change well. He'd been with the SVU for two years already when I took over as captain, and if you believe the statistics, he was about ready to transfer out. But Elliot didn't follow statistical trends. He was his own man.

At first he was a real pain in the ass. He was this young hotshot detective who had closed a string of important cases with successful prosecutions, and he had me pegged for a tired old man who was just here marking time until retirement. The first three months or so were kind of rough.

Elliot had this way of being disrespectful that always fell just short of insubordination. He turned his paperwork in on time and kept me apprised of his investigations, but when we discussed his cases he'd leave out important information. Later, I'd ask him why he didn't tell me something, and he'd reply with, "You didn't ask, sir."

Sometimes, when we finally figured out who the perp was, the guy had dropped off the face of the earth. Elliot would ask around, find out his favorite hangout, all the things he was supposed to do, but then he'd go and organize a stakeout with out my authorization. When I called him on it, he would give me this smirk that I just wanted to wipe right off his face and say, "Come on, Cap, are you seriously telling me you would say no?"

I knew exactly what he was trying to do. He was telling me, "You might be the superior officer, but I'm in charge around here."

* * *

Lancaster – 4 

I let him get away with that little stunt once so he could claim he didn't know better and twice so he could say that he thought it was cool because I didn't give him a reprimand the first time, but the third time he tried it, I put him in his place.

"No, Detective, a stakeout is a good idea, but you'll have to revise your schedule," I said. "You and your partner have just drawn ass duty for the next two weeks."

Desk duty to Elliot was like losing recess to a kindergartener.

"But Cap . . ."

"Thirty days."

He opened his mouth to argue again, and I cut him off. "Wanna go for two months?"

He shut his mouth and tossed the folder he'd been holding on his desk. It was just after five, and he was due to go home, so I let him get as far as the coat rack before I told him, "I want that revised schedule on my desk before you leave."

He was livid. I could tell he wanted to hit something, probably my face, but he put his coat back on the hanger and went to his desk to get to work. I didn't like humiliating him in front of his colleagues, but I knew I had to knock him down a few pegs. I figured he'd be better off for it in the long run because I planned to stick around a while.

Half an hour later, he came into my office to drop off the schedule. He wasn't contrite, but then I hadn't expected him to be. I let him get to the door before I said, "Sit down. If you've screwed this up, you're going to have to fix it yourself. I won't do it for you."

Scheduling shifts for a stakeout can be more complicated than you might think. You have to account for people's court appearances, their regular shifts in the squad room, the maximum hours they're allowed on the clock without a day off, and the overtime budget.

I looked it over and nodded. "Ok, you did a good job with this."

He got up to leave, but I told him, "Sit down, Detective, I did not dismiss you."

He sat there, head bowed, elbows resting on his knees, hands clenched together, and it was hard not to laugh. He looked like a kid who had been called to the principal's office. He deserved a good ass chewing, and he knew it; but there was no way in hell he was going to apologize.

"Now, I've been putting up with your crap because Alphonse swears to me that you're a good cop and I really don't want to make him break in a new partner this close to retirement." He looked up at me in shock, and I told him, "That's right, Alphonse and I

* * *

Lancaster –5 

were walking a beat together when you were still playing stickball and wearing short pants."

Elliot's partner, Alphonse Bennetto, was my training partner. Since they can only teach you so much at the academy, it was his job to keep me from getting myself killed until I learned how to be a cop. I'm still here, so he must have done a good job.

"Alphonse is retiring in a month," I told Elliot, "and you have a decision to make. I admit you're a good cop, so don't think for a minute that I doubt your abilities; but anybody here can do what you do without jerking me around. So, I have no reason to keep you here once Alphonse is gone. You can spend the next thirty days of desk duty getting rid of that bug up your ass or you can apply for a transfer, but one way or the other, you're gonna stop screwing with me. You got that?"

He met my eyes when he replied, and I knew right then that he wouldn't be transferring.

"Yes, sir," he said quietly, and for the first time, respectfully.

"All right then, you're dismissed."

As he opened the door I said, "Oh, and Detective, that's thirty work days, not calendar days. You're on desk duty for six weeks."

He gave me a lopsided smile of amused surrender and nodded. "Yes, sir."

It would be a lie to say I never had any more trouble out of him, and sometimes he pissed me off so much that I just sent him home; but I never regretted letting him come back to work. I'm very lucky and blessed, and very, _very_ proud to call the man my friend.


	6. More Interviews

_I thank the captain for his time and ask him when it would be possible for me to interview the two detectives he had mentioned who had worked with Elliot. He asks if I have time right now, and I explain that it's summer vacation, so I am free until September. He picks up the phone and dials an internal extension._

"_Munch, what are you doing for the next hour?"_

_He listens for a moment, but it must not be terribly important, because the next thing I know, he says, "Put that aside for now and come into my office."_

_The tall man with whom I had spoken when I first arrived here enters without knocking a moment later._

"_What's up, Chief?" he asks casually._

_The captain explains my project to him, and asks if he would mind speaking with me for a little while. He gives me a smile and says, "Sure, I can do that, but you should really be talking to Lieutenant Benson in Homicide at the Fourteenth Precinct. She knew him better than any of us."_

"_I'll do that," I assure him, "but I'm trying to talk to as many people as I can find who know him."_

"_I'll have a list for you before you leave," the captain volunteers. "Stop by on your way out."_

_I nod. "I will, thanks." Then I smile at Detective Munch and ask, "So, is there a good place where we can go to talk?"_

_He nods and says, "Why don't we go to the lounge? It's much more comfortable than anywhere else in this . . . building."_

_He says the word __**building**__ much as I imagine he would say the word hell-hole. I think everybody hates their job, even if they love it. I smile, appreciating the cooperation and say, "Lead the way." _

_I move to follow him out the door, but pause to ask the captain one more question. "When was the last time you went to visit Elliot?"_

_The captain looks immediately uncomfortable and I feel bad. I can tell it's an awkward question, but I decide right then that I will ask it of everyone I interview._

"_I . . . Uh . . . It's been a while," he admits looking ashamed._

_I nod, understanding that it must be difficult for him to admit that, especially considering that he has just told me he loved the man like his own son._

"_Liz tells me he's doing better," I say. "Maybe you should stop by and see him."_

_He brightens. "I . . . I'll do that," he says._

_I can't leave him thinking Elliot is suddenly alert and talking after all this time. "Just keep in mind, better means he withdraws from pain now."_

_The smile fades, and he nods. "Yeah, right. Thanks."_

_I follow Detective Munch up to the lounge, which is above the captain's office and the interrogation rooms. It is a surprisingly large, airy space with a blue-and-cream paint job and comfortable furniture. It is also surprisingly peaceful due, in part I'm sure, to the cool tones with which it has been decorated. One wall is missing, replaced by a wrought iron rail so if someone upstairs needs to speak to someone downstairs, he or she can just give a shout._

_First Munch leads me over to the coffee maker. It's a huge restaurant-style machine with two brewers and four pots. At the moment only three of them are in use. On the bottom, under the brewers are a pot of regular and a pot of decaffeinated coffee. On one of the heaters on top is a pot of hot water. Detective Munch pours himself a cup of water and takes a teabag from the tray next to the coffee machine. He dunks the teabag several times and adds two packets of sugar and a teaspoon of Carnation non-dairy creamer to the cup. I pour myself a cup of regular coffee and add two packets of sugar. I taste it, and make a face because it is so strong it almost hurts to drink it. I add four more sugars. _

_He gives me a cadaverous grin and says, "I guess I made it too strong again."_

_I glance to his cup of tea and know the mischievous glint in his eye was not my imagination. It pisses me off. _

"_I don't think that was an accident," I say. "That's a shitty thing to do to your friends. Some people take comfort in a good cup of coffee, and I imagine in your line of work there are times when they really need it."_

_He frowns slightly, looks into his cup of tea, glances over at the coffee maker, and looks a little contrite. "I never thought of it like that," he says._

_I stand there a moment wondering what the hell possessed me to talk like that to a cop. When did I become so bold? _

_He motions toward the comfortable furniture and we go sit down. Detective Munch folds his lanky frame into an overstuffed armchair with wide cream and cadet blue stripes. I sit on the matching couch with one leg tucked up under me. I notice that a tiny hole has appeared in the thigh of my jeans, and I start playing with it, pulling at the frayed edges._

"_I . . . uh . . . I don't know if you realize it, but I'm the last case Elliot . . . um . . . Detective Stabler ever worked," I begin._

"_I know that, AJ," he tells me. "Half the squad knows that, and the other half, well, they'll at least recognize your name."_

_I feel myself blushing, but I have no idea why I'm embarrassed. "I didn't realize that."_

_We're quiet a moment longer, and I feel myself start to choke._

"_It's ok," he tells me kindly, leaning forward to place a hand on my knee. "It wasn't your fault. We all know what can happen from the day we take this job. Elliot wasn't doing anything against his will. He was doing something that was enormously important to him."_

_I meet his gaze. It's steady and sincere even with the dark eyes hidden behind the glasses. I nod, appreciating the reassurance._

"_Dickie tells me you visit Elliot regularly."_

_I can't hide my surprise. "You know his kids?"_

"_I've met them all, but Dickie and I have become a little closer over the past couple of years," he said. "When he was little, I was his Uncle Munchie. Whenever his mom brought him to see Elliot at work, he came to me looking for . . . well, munchies, pudding cups usually. I gave him whatever I had, but a couple of times I know they were pretty fuzzy, if you know what I mean."_

_I smile for a moment, and then grow serious again. "He doesn't mind that I visit Detective Stabler, does he?"_

_Munch shakes his head and leans forward again. "I don't think so," he says. "It's hard for him to see his dad that way, but I think that knowing you care about what happens to Elliot makes him feel a little better. He can look at you and at least know that something good came of it."_

_I smile, and this time it stays with me. "I'm glad."_

_Munch leans back in his seat again, almost reclining this time as he stretches his long legs out before him._

"_So, what do you want to know about Stabler?"_

_I think back to what the captain told me and ask, "Was he easy to get along with? Did you work well together?"_

_He laughs slightly and says, "We got along ok, and when we worked together we didn't usually have problems, but if we had been regular partners, I am sure we would have come to blows, and he would have kicked my ass. Then, being Catholic, he would have felt guilty about it because he was so much stronger than me that it couldn't have been a fair fight. He was a pain in the ass, and I was a thorn in his side."_

_The detective's candor surprises me almost as much as the fact that he is the second person to tell me Elliot was a difficult person. For some reason, I would have thought people would have only good things to say about their fallen colleague. I guess that old taboo about not speaking ill of the dead doesn't apply to those who are lying helplessly comatose._

_Munch and I talk about Elliot for almost an hour and I get a sense of the dynamic relationship they shared. When the interview is over, I ask the universal question._

"_When was the last time you went to see him?"_

"_It's been about two weeks," he said. "Dickie comes home from school, and he and I go out to visit the first Sunday of every month. The nurses dress him and put him in a wheelchair, and we take him to mass in the nursing home chapel. Elliot and I are a lot alike in that our faith is important to both of us even though we don't broadcast it to the world, and I think it's easier for Dickie to have someone with him when he goes."_

"_You know, he likes to be called Rick now," I said._

"_So I've heard, but he never corrects me."_

_I smile. "Maybe he still needs his Uncle Munchie to look out for him."_

_Munch smiles. "Maybe he does." He crushes his cup and tosses it into the trash. "Wait here and I'll send my partner up to you, ok?"_

"_I will," I say, "and thanks for your time."_

"_It was my pleasure," he says sincerely, and he disappears down the stairs._

_When Detective Munch's partner appears at the top of the stairs, he looks like he'd rather be having a root canal than be talking to me. I don't know if it's his normal expression or if he really dreads this interview that much, so I struggle to think of a tactful way to find out._

_I introduce myself and take it as a good sign that he shakes my hand. _

"_My partner told me who you are," he says. "My name's Odafin Tutuola."_

_He patiently spells it for me when I ask and adds, "People call me Fin."_

'_People call me,' I think. 'Not you can call me.' I decide to take it as an invitation anyway._

"_So, Fin, did your partner also tell you why I'm here?"_

"_Yeah."_

_Oh, great. This is going to be like pulling teeth. I struggle not to laugh as I recall my earlier thoughts about root canals._

_He sits there staring at me, completely expressionless. This guy is cold as ice, I realize. He could be bursting to talk to me or ready to slap my face around to the other side of my head, and I would never know the difference until it happened. I finally decide on the direct approach._

"_It's all right if you don't want to talk to me, Detective," I say._

_He shrugs. "I'm willin' to help any way I can," he replies. "I just don't know how much help I can be. Elliot and me never talked much."_

"_Did you not get along?"_

"_We got along fine," he says, "except for when my kid got in trouble, but he was just doin' his job an' I was just bein' a worried dad. Once we got past that, everything was cool again. We just didn't discuss our personal lives with each other."_

_I just now notice that he has a slight lisp, which doesn't seem to fit with his tough appearance and stern personality._

"_I see. So, most of what you knew about him came from what you learned through your work?" I ask, trying to identify the boundaries of their relationship._

"_That's right."_

"_So what did you think of him?"_

_Fin thinks a moment and says, "He was all right."_

_I give him thirty seconds to continue that thought, but he doesn't. Now, I think I'd rather be having a root canal._

"_All right? That's it? Really now, what was your first impression of him?"_

_The change in his expression immediately tells me I have hit a gold mine. I see a brief flicker of a smile which he savagely suppresses. Then he can't help himself and he is grinning. He lowers his head to hide it, and then looks up at the ceiling. Finally I see some teeth, and there is a wicked glint in his eye._

"_He was a good guy, don't get me wrong, but in the neighborhood where I grew up, even with all those muscles and those killer tats, he'd still be just a candy-ass white boy."_

_I raise a questioning eyebrow, and Fin says, "He's so clean-cut and righteous, man, there's dudes in the 'hood woulda beat him up just for breathin' their oxygen."_

_I frown. "I was under the impression that he was the kind of guy who could take care of himself."_

"_Well, yeah," Fin agrees, "in a fair fight, maybe even two on one, but the kind of thugs I'm talkin' 'bout, they travel in packs, like dogs. But, now that I think about it, Elliot knew how to handle people when he wanted to. If he had grown up in the hood, he'd probably have figured out how to get down with the thugs and still be true to himself."_

_I don't need to ask another question. Now that we have broken the ice, Fin speaks freely and at length about a friendship he obviously held in high esteem. _

_When he finally winds down, I ask him the only question I have left. "When was the last time you went to visit Elliot?"_

_All of the mirth leaves his face, and I am back to wondering if I will leave with all of my teeth in my head. What's with the dental metaphors today?_

_Fin shakes his head. He opens his mouth several times to answer, but never does. The best he can manage is, "I can't . . . I mean . . ."_

_He's clearly pained by the thought of his friend's condition, and he cannot look me in the eye._

_Finally, I tell him, "It's all right, Detective, you don't have to answer."_

_He looks up at me, clearly relieved._

"_Well, I do need to be going," I say, extending my hand to shake. "Goodbye, and thank you for your time."_

_He takes my hand, grips it firmly as if trying to show me that he is an honorable man despite the fact that he feels he has neglected his friend. I offer him a smile, trying to show that I won't judge him too harshly for his one act of cowardice. Then I leave him to wrestle with his conscience._


	7. The Thorn

Lancaster – 6

**The Thorn  
Detective John Munch**

Elliot and I never really hung out much, except to have the occasional drink after work to celebrate or drown our sorrows, depending on how the day went. We were polar opposites. He tried to be very stoic, and usually succeeded until he lost his temper. I go on regular rants about anything that annoys me but can usually keep my cool if I choose to even when a suspect makes me want to puke. He's a very clean-cut, conservative, all-American guy. I'm an old hippie at heart who can find a government conspiracy in the fact that hotdogs come in packs of ten and buns come in packs of eight. In many ways, we are each what the other is not, but I'd still say we're good friends. He's a nice guy.

Sometimes, I think the only thing that kept him from hurting me was that he knew I couldn't help being the way I am any more than he could help being the way he was. I like to needle people and provoke them. I was the kid who sat in the back of the car with my finger half an inch from my brother's nose saying, "I'm not touching you," when we went on vacation. I annoy people just for the pure pleasure of getting a rise out of them, but Elliot never played those kinds of games. He has a good sense of humor, and he's not above teasing someone once in a while, but he would never seek to create conflict with someone he cares about. Arguing is entertainment to me, but to him, I think it could be kind of scary sometimes. If something mattered to him enough to argue about it, he would tell you what he thought. If it was really important, he'd try to persuade you to see his point. But he would never argue about something just for the hell of it. I think he was always afraid he would say something or do something that he couldn't take back.

If this squad was a family, then Elliot was the favorite son, and he knew it. I guess you could say he was a bit of a diva, too, and a drama queen. He was definitely high maintenance, volatile, had an explosive temper. Cragen bailed his ass out of trouble more times than you could count. If I'm making him sound like a pain in the ass, well, sometimes he was, but you just couldn't hold it against him because he was such a decent man and a damned good cop. Any crap you had to deal with because of Stabler was absolutely worth it. He's the kind of guy who made you better just by working with him.

He's very straight-laced and sees things in black and white; and he has a rough time with the gray areas in between. Sometimes that can hurt him or make him hard to deal with, but that doesn't mean he's narrow-minded. Some people, when they get to be so sure that they know right from wrong, become bigots or stop growing mentally and emotionally; but Elliot wasn't like that. He could understand how some people might have a moral dilemma with something that was perfectly clear to him, and he never judged them for making a choice that he wouldn't have made unless it hurt someone else.

There was this woman, someone I came to care about, and she needed a kidney. In the course of the investigation, I did something incredibly stupid to try and help her. It didn't hurt anybody, but it was ethically and legally wrong. Elliot caught me in the act. He

* * *

Lancaster – 7 

should have turned me in. I really thought he was going to, but he didn't. Somehow, he understood how I could rationalize my behavior even though it was wrong on so many levels. He knew how important it was to me to help that woman. I never thanked him for that. I suppose I should have.

I remember when my Uncle Andrew was committed. It's a complicated story, but basically, my uncle had a bad reaction to some antidepressants. They made him manic and he wound up killing a man who had raped, tortured, and murdered a single mother and her little girl. The court recognized that Uncle Andrew was not in full possession of his faculties at the time of the murder. All he had to do was take his meds, and the court would have released him, but he still held himself responsible for the man's death and refused any medication.

Elliot came to the hospital and tried to help me convince him to take his pills. It didn't work, and within a month, Uncle Andrew had disappeared into his own mind. At least Elliot tried to help, which is more than I can say for his partner at the time who was more responsible for my uncle's predicament that anyone.

Anyway, Uncle Andrew died about a year later. Just about everyone in the squad came to pay their respects, but Elliot sat Shiva with me. Every day he would come by as soon as he got off work and sit for an hour or two. I don't know why he did it, how he learned about the customs, or what he expected to do for me, but it meant something that he would bother. I never thanked him for that, either.

One of the first cases we worked together was a piano teacher who molested his students. The guy had dozens of videos of himself touching these little kids, and there was this one boy, Evan, who practically grew up on camera. It took a while, but we found Evan and he was going to be our star witness against the teacher. It was hard for the kid. Music was supposed to be his way out of poverty. He even had an audition at Julliard. Elliot really took an interest in him, made sure he knew the abuse wasn't his fault, helped him deal with it. Then I found another tape of Evan, and this time, he was the molester.

I didn't want to show Elliot the tape. I knew it would crush him, but I couldn't keep it from him. In the end, the teacher went to jail for what would probably be the rest of his life. Evan understood what he did and rather than go to trial and try to play the jury for sympathy, he copped a plea. He didn't do much jail time, but he didn't get into Julliard either. He's probably out by now. I hope he found a way to make a living from music. He was a sweet kid, in spite of what he did. I was never really convinced that he had a choice at all. I don't know what Elliot thought, but I know it haunted him for a long time.

I miss having Stabler around. He had such a strong moral compass. I always felt like, if Elliot was cool with it, or if he didn't try to stop me, I couldn't be going too far wrong.

Damn, I miss him.


	8. The Thug

Lancaster – 8

**The Thug  
Detective Odafin Tutuola**

I wouldn't be surprised if Elliot thought I was nothin' but a thug when we first met. I wouldn't really blame him, either. I came in fresh from narcotics dressed like I would be for a undercover operation in a track suit an' a dew-rag with some hot new kicks on my feet. Man, I must have looked like a idiot. At the time all the men in SVU wore jackets and ties.

Of course, I did the same thing. I took one look at Stabler with his broad shoulders an' Marine Corp tatt, his pretty wife an' cute kids, an' I thought, man, this guy don't know nothin' about nothin'. I had him pegged for a Captain America type, you know, the kind of guy who figures if you have a rough life, you just aren't workin' hard enough. I expected him to take one look at me, decide I was a lower class of people, an' try his best to ignore me when he could.

I guess that's why they tell you not to judge a book by its cover.

There was this one time we were checkin' out a crime scene on a rooftop somewhere in the city, just me an' Elliot, an' we were talkin' about growin' up. He said how he used to sit in Queens an' look at the lights in the city an' wish he was there. I told him how when I was a kid I used to go out on the roof of my buildin' in the summer an' wish I was somewhere else. We called it Tar Beach or Isle of Aroofa, like we were really goin' to vacation in Aruba. All the girls used to go there to hang out, an' all the guys would go there to get next to the girls. He thought we should have traded places. I figured we both just wanted the same thing: whatever it was that we didn't have. I think that's the day that I learned that we're more alike than we are different, not just me an' Elliot, but all of us. It's kind of weird sometimes, the way people teach you things without ever meanin' to or realizin' it, isn't it?

Another time, we had this guy who was smugglin' cocaine in from Mexico in cans of baby formula. He'd rent a baby from someone who needed the money, an' then he'd hire someone else to take that baby to Mexico an' fly back with a couple of extra cans of formula that were really filled with cocaine. We caught the case because some housekeeper stole a can of formula from her employer to tide her over until she got paid an' she ended up overdosin' her baby on cocaine.

Next thing we know, IAB springs our suspect, he winds up dead, an' we're lookin' for a dirty cop. Cragen authorized a under cover detail, an' because this was Wall Street we were dealin' with, Elliot was the only one of us who had the looks for it. Take away his badge and gun, get him to smile once in a while, an' he's Mr. Corporate America. So, he takes the assignment, makes his contact at some bar, an' sets up a night meeting outside some warehouse down at the docks.

Lancaster – 9

Now, SVU doesn't usually go under cover, an' when we do, it usually isn't too dangerous, relatively speakin'. There's always risk involved, but your typical pedophile isn't gonna to shoot a cop. Narcotics, that's another story. A drug dealer will gun down his own grandma an' step over her body for a kilo of coke. I came to SVU because my partner in narcotics died takin' a bullet that was meant for me. I don't know if Elliot knew that, but I hadn't made a secret of it.

So, there we are, on the docks at night, waitin' for this deal to go down, an' the guy shows up with his buddy. They have a little conversation an' then the buddy pats Elliot down, puts the cuffs on him and starts tunin' him up. Everybody's lookin' to me to make the call on what to do because I'm the one with the experience in narcotics; an' there's Captain America with his pretty little wife an' his cute little kids an' his tidy little suburban home out there hangin' in the wind. He's got so much to lose, so much to live for, an' he's trustin' me to keep him alive.

I told everybody to wait. The guy slapped Elliot around a little bit, punched him in the gut an' gave him a fat lip or a bloody nose, I don't remember; but I do remember that Elliot took it like a man an' kept his cool an' trusted me to know if an' when we needed to move in. His wife an' kids were waitin' on him to come home after the meetin', an' he trusted me to get him there in one piece. It was a humblin' experience.

Elliot didn't care how I dressed or talked or where I came from. All he needed to know was that I could do my job an' he could trust me. For a candy-ass white boy from Queens, he was all right.


	9. Exercises

"_Hey, Liz," I greet Elliot's youngest daughter as she is leaving the hospital and I am going in. She's gotten just a slight tan since last I saw her and the freckles on her nose are darker. She's wearing a lightweight denim sundress with a high waist and three-tiered skirt. The top part fits snugly around her generous boobs and the three small bows down the middle ensure that I notice. There's a narrow band of lace around the neckline and where each of the tiers joins the one next to it. It looks like something out of a western set in the 1800's, but I can't decide if it reminds me more of a little girl's pinafore or a saloon girl's nightgown. The latter thought excites me a bit, and I self-consciously shift my writing portfolio to hide any tell-tale sign that might arise in my jeans._

"_Hi, AJ, how are you?"_

"_Fine, thanks, and you?"_

"_I'm doing fine. How's the writing going?"_

"_Oh, uh, fine," I say, feeling like an idiot. Fine? Can't I think of anything better? "I have four parts written already. They're a little rough, but I thought I might read them to your dad. It always helps me to hear my words aloud, and maybe it will entertain him."_

_I doubt he has any clue what any of us are saying when we talk to him. At best he might recognize the loving voices of his friends and family, and at worst he hears weird and terrifying sounds. I really don't think he's capable of processing the words._

_She smiled and nods. "I think he'd like that." She looks at her watch and says, "I'd love to stay and listen, but I have a lunch date."_

"_Oh, someone special?" I ask feeling a little disappointed._

_She rolls her eyes and my heart leaps for joy. "__**He **__thinks he is."_

_I laugh aloud. "But you're not so sure?"_

"_It's just that, well, he's always telling me about the things he's done, but when I talk about my life, about Kathleen's kids growing up or my dad making some small improvement, he acts bored." She shrugs, "I know it doesn't compare with taking humanitarian aid into Baghdad or anything like that, but being here for my family isn't a waste of time either!"_

_She seems a little insecure despite her words, and I want to punch the jerk who has made her doubt herself. Since I can't do that, I settle for trying to make her feel better. I reach out and put a hand on her arm. Her skin is soft and warm and for a moment, I'm afraid I'm at a loss for words, but then something comes to me._

"_Elizabeth, listen to me," I say. "People who make grand gestures and then brag about being so selfless, are really selfish. They're seeking praise and attention. People like you, who do a thousand small kindnesses every day are the ones who create the beauty in the world. You're so much better than that guy, Liz. Don't let him make you feel small."_

_She laughs and says, "I didn't know you were a poet. A thousand small kindnesses? Create the beauty in the world? Wow."_

_She begins to move away from me, but I grip her arm tighter. "I mean it, Liz," I say as sincerely as I can._

_She turns to face me directly, puts a hand against the side of my face, and says, "You're very sweet, AJ. Thank you. It was a lovely thing to say."_

_She gives me a quick peck on the cheek and I am so shocked that I let go of her arm. She hurries away from me, but calls back over her shoulder, "Let me know how Daddy likes your project!"_

_I am glad she doesn't look back at me. I can feel my face blushing hotly red and I am sure I must look lovesick. I take a moment to recover my faculties, and then I head into the home to visit with Elliot._

_The first thing I do when I get to Elliot's room is check the log Elizabeth keeps on his nightstand. Every day, she evaluates him on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Today he scored a four on his motor response, which means that when she pinched his arm or his foot he pulled away. His verbal response was a one, which means he didn't make a sound, which is typical for him, and his eye response was a two because he opened his eyes when she did something to cause him pain. I look at him and have to wonder if Liz is being generous in her grading because she wants so badly for him to come back to her._

_The Brain Injury Center on Staten Island is one of the oldest and best rehab facilities in New York State. Liz had to fight like hell to get Elliot into it. Ordinarily people in comas as deep as his was initially are just warehoused until they die. Oh, the doctors might try for six months or a year to create some kind of improvement, but soon enough they give up saying that the patient can't be helped, that the best thing they can do is make him comfortable, that the family should consider removing the feeding tube._

_Liz had other ideas. She did her research and made up her mind that her father's only hope was to be __**un**__comfortable. She was determined that, wherever he wound up, he would be stimulated daily with sound, light, and exercise, and she got it into her head that TBIC on Staten Island was just the place to do that. I guess it paid off. Just over a year ago, his GCS score was no better than a dead man's and now he was responding to stimuli. _

_Of course the staff at TBIC could only do so much. Elizabeth had made up her mind to do the rest, and she enlisted friends and family to help. I know from having read the daily log in the past that Liz's sisters and brother help with Elliot's exercises, as does detective Munch and Elliot's former partner, Olivia Benson. Most patients in Elliot's condition get physical therapy once a day for a couple of hours six days a week. Elliot gets is seven days a week, sometimes for five or six hours. I think everyone who visits him does something._

_Liz has taught me many of the exercises that she and the physical therapist do with Elliot to help keep his body functioning and I always try to do at least twenty minutes of PT with him when I visit. So I read the rest of her notes for the day and see that no one has worked on his hands recently. I jot that in the log and then go over to the bed to remove his splints._

_The splints keep Elliot's hands from fisting so that he will have some range of motion if he should ever wake up, but his fingers still curl over the edges of the splints. Liz wants him to have full use of his hands as soon as possible, if he comes back to her, so she got the physical therapist to devise some hand exercises. The therapist taught them to her, and she has taught them to probably everyone who has ever come to see Elliot._

_By the time I place the second splint on the nightstand all eight of his fingers are curled under to the palms of his hands and his thumbs rest tight against the sides of his index fingers. I adjust the bed so he is sitting upright, pull the swing-arm table over, and gently straighten the fingers of his right hand one by one holding them in place with one hand while using the other to straighten the next. Then I place my right hand over his aligning our fingers and press his palm flat against the table. This makes his thumb automatically rotate into a natural position with respect to the rest of his hand._

_My portfolio is on the bed at his feet, so while we sit there straightening his fingers, I pick it up and start to read. It takes me about five minutes to get through the first section of my project, the part about myself, and then it's time to change the exercise._

_Taking his right wrist in my right hand, I lift his forearm off the table and rest his elbow on it. Then I press my left hand against his right, again aligning our fingers. Slowly, very gently I push with the fingers of my left hand to bend his digits backward. It's not enough just to straighten his fingers, Liz has told me. For him to retain a full range of motion, all the tendons must be stretched regularly. I briefly consider pushing his fingers back far enough to really hurt just to see if he will pull away from me, but that would be a cruel thing to do just to satisfy my curiosity. Besides, even if Liz is just fooling herself that he is improving, I think she deserves to have her fantasy. Lord knows, she has earned it._

_Because I have to hold Elliot's arm in place for this part of the exercise, I can't read to him from my portfolio, so I talk instead._

"_You know, everyone I have asked so far has called you a pain in the ass." I'm quiet a moment as if waiting for him to speak. Liz tells me that's how she chats with him. She says that, even if he can't talk, maybe he can form a response in his mind. I just have to give him the time to do it. _

"_What I don't understand is how come they all like you so much." Again I'm quiet, and then, as if he had suggested it first, "I __**know**__ you're a charming guy, but how do you get them to see that when the first impression everyone gets is that you're a pain in the ass?"_

_After another silence, "Oh, you grow on them, do you? So does athlete's foot and ringworm, you know."_

_We carry on this one sided conversation for about five minutes with me telling him about my activities at the community center and the classes I plan to take in the fall and him just being the best listener in the world. It's nice to have someone who will let me ramble on and sort things out for myself. Uncle Jason doesn't have the time to listen and Consuelo always tries to solve my problems for me. But I'm still not convinced that Elliot hears me._

_I move on to his left hand, and as I have his palm pressed to the table top I read him the segment of my paper about Captain Cragen. Then I do the stretching exercise and we have another chat about inconsequential things. Finally I put the splints back on him and sit in the chair beside his bed to read the rest of what I have written._

"_Betcha didn't know Fin thought you were a candy-ass white boy, did you?" I ask as I close my portfolio a short while later._

_I look over at him lying so still in the bed. His eyes have opened to the sound of my voice. That's another point on the GCS. I press the button to page the nurse and smile. He has gained another inch._


	10. And Now the Hard Part

_Talking to his wife and kids is going to be difficult. Elizabeth wants to call them together for me so I can interview whole family at once, but I refuse. It will be more time consuming one-on-one, more inconvenient for me, but in the long run, it will be easier. I don't think I could face them as a group. They have lost so much that Ray Ray and I might be saved. I have to speak with them one at a time because I'm afraid their collective pain would crush me._

_I decide to start with Rick. Somehow, I think he will be easier to talk to because we are both guys. He's home on summer break from the University of Pennsylvania where he is studying psychology in the hopes of one day becoming a criminal profiler. I meet him at a park not far from his mother's house in Glen Oaks and we shoot some hoops and talk, but it is only after he has kicked my ass all over the court twice, beating me twenty-one to three and twenty-one to seven that he finally gets honest. I am shocked that he is so good at the game, he can't be more than five feet nine inches tall._

_We stop for a rest and a water break and I ask him, "Man, where did you learn to play like that?"_

"_My dad taught me," he says with a grin. "Liz and I used to play against him two on one from the time we were about nine years old. If you think I'm good, you should see her in action. She was a starter on the girls' varsity team all four years of high school and she can still beat my ass."_

"_Really? I never knew that."_

"_She doesn't like to advertise it. She wants people to think she's a girlie girl." _

_I think of telling him that I think she's one hell of a girlie girl, but I'm afraid he might slug me. Some guys don't appreciate hearing that you're hot for their sisters._

_He takes a long draw on his water bottle and says, "You know, I hated you for a long time."_

_I feel like I've been punched in the gut, but he doesn't seem to notice. He just goes on talking casually and I am glad. It gives me time to recover._

"_It was nothing personal, really. I hated all the victims who took him away from me, from my birthday, my scout meetings and baseball games, Sunday dinners. I know it was childish, but what the hell. I __**was**__ a child."_

_We're sitting on the bench beside the court and he picks up the ball and dribbles it frantically for a moment, letting it bounce just a couple of inches off the ground. Then he stops it, rests a foot on it, and smiles at me sheepishly. "I got over it."_

_I ask him when he last visited his dad, and he tells me the same thing Detective Munch did, "About two weeks ago. John Munch and I took him to mass in the chapel."_

"_What about the time before that? How long had it been?"_

"_About a month." _

_I wait silently, wanting to see if he will elaborate, and he does. His eyes flood with tears and suddenly he is weeping. "I wish I could be like Liz. I wish I could do what she does, but I can't. It __**kills **__me to see him like that. He was my __**hero**__! God forgive me, sometimes I wish he had died."_

_I sit quietly not knowing what to do. I wish I could comfort him, but I don't know how he would react. After all, I am the reason his father was taken from him in the cruelest way. Coward that I am, I sit and watch him cry until he has regained control of himself._

"_Do you remember when Christopher Reeve was paralyzed?" he asks with a sniff._

_I shake my head. I know the name, but that's all._

"_I guess you wouldn't. I was only about three at the time, so you probably hadn't even been born."_

"_Probably not," I agree._

"_Well, he played Superman in three or four corny movies that my dad liked," Rick explains, "and one weekend, when my mom and sisters were off doing some girlie things, he rented them and we watched them all back to back. Man, after that, I thought, next to my dad, he had to be the coolest man in the world. I mean, the dude could __**fly**__, you know?"_

_I smile. "That's certainly an impressive skill."_

_He looks at me and frowns as if he's not sure if I am mocking him. His sister gets my dry wit. I guess I thought he would, too._

"_Yeah, well, anyway, he broke his neck in a riding accident and was paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. People all over the world were horrified. I happened to see something about it on the news and my dad had to explain it to me. I thought it was the worst thing in the world that could happen to such a strong man and his family."_

_He falls silent for a moment. While I wait for him to speak he squeezes his water bottle and releases it over and over again. The plastic crackles and the water squirts out. I wonder if he is doing this because he doesn't want to take his anger out on me. I'd gladly let him hit me if he wanted. I owe him, I owe his whole family so much and there is no way I can ever give them back what they have lost._

_He rubs a hand over his forehead, runs his fingers through his hair. "Now I know better."_

_We talk a little longer and he tells me a few things about his dad, but he's afraid to get emotional again, so he's careful with his words. One revealing thing he does share is that he has taken his confirmation name, Michael, as his middle name to honor his father. Saint Michael, he explains, is the patron saint of policemen. He might be able to conceal his pain but he can't hide from me how much he loves his father. _

_I find myself wanting to cheer him up, so as we part, I say, "I visited your dad the other day and read him some of the things I have written for my summer assignment. When I finished, I looked up and he had his eyes open."_

_I wait for a smile that never comes, and I soon realize that Rick Stabler understands his dad's condition just as well as I do._

_Elliot's oldest daughter, Maureen is an overachiever like me. She's twenty-seven and already has a Bachelor's degree in Psychology, a Master's in social work, and has recently started a job as director of the Safe Horizon Queens Oasis Domestic Violence shelter. She's very philosophical about what happened to her dad._

"_AJ, you have to understand, he always felt he could never do enough to keep us safe," she says over coffee and home made shortbread cookies. "He wanted to wrap us all in tissue paper and put us in a box on a high shelf where nothing could touch us. He never did understand that the best thing he could do was just be there. It's why I decided not to have kids of my own until I have a job with regular hours."_

_I ask what she remembers about the times when he was there and she talks easily and at length about getting in trouble, fighting with him and making up, and doing things like getting a henna tattoo just to freak him out. It is the easiest interview I have had so far. Then I ask my question._

"_When was the last time you went to visit him?"_

"_I'm there almost every weekend," she says. "I try to give Liz a break, but she always shows up anyway. He's a real history buff, so I usually take a book to read to him. Right now, we're in the middle of something called _**The Seige**_ about the siege of Leningrad during World War II, but I'm thinking about quitting and picking something else because it is just so depressing."_

_I think about what she says and what may have made him respond to my reading and finally suggest, "You might want to keep reading it. If he does hear you and if he hears how it affects you, maybe he'll react to the emotional stimulus."_

_She gives my suggestion a thought and then nods. "You could have a point."_

_Her phone rings then, and she glances at the caller ID. "I'm sorry," she says. "I have to take this. The guy's been a chronic problem and I'm trying to get his wife to come here with the kids before he kills her in front of them."_

_She picks up the phone without waiting for my reply, so I gather my things and wave goodbye._

_Elliot's second daughter, Kathleen, is the hardest one for me to sit down with. I'm not sure if it's because she doesn't want to talk to me or because she almost never gets the chance __**to **__sit down. At the age of twenty-four she already has five kids under the age of six, including a set of twins, which is something she says runs in her mom's family, and is expecting her sixth __**and seventh**__ in August. I would have expected her to look exhausted, all things considered, but I can't believe how fresh she looks. When I comment on it, she laughs._

"_That's just good make-up skills," she says. "If I had five minutes of peace, I'd be out like a light. At least only one of them's in diapers right now, and she'll be out of them by the time I give birth. When I first had Syd and JD, all five of my babies were still wearing Huggies, at least at night."_

"_I don't know how you manage," I say._

"_Without my mom, my mother-in-law, and my husband, I wouldn't," she says. "I've had gestational diabetes with my last three pregnancies, which has since turned in to type II diabetes, and when the twins were born I also developed preeclampsia and had a mini-stroke. On top of all that, my kidney function is slowly decreasing and it looks like one of these days I'm going to be on dialysis or have to have a transplant."_

_She rubs a hand lovingly over her baby bump and says, "When I got pregnant again, my doctor told me to have an abortion, but we're Catholic and there is no way that's gonna happen. Then he told me, if I survive this pregnancy, I won't live through another. __**If**__ I survive . . . that made me stop and think. My husband and I have talked it over, and after these two are born, I'm having my tubes tied. I figure, if God can make Sara pregnant at ninety, he can figure out a way around a knot if he really wants to."_

_I make some sounds of agreement. This wasn't the conversation I was expecting. _

_She smiles and says, "You really didn't need to know all of that, did you? I'm sorry, I guess it's in the front of my mind because I had a checkup just yesterday. You want to ask me about my dad."_

_I nod, but I really don't know what to ask. Her husband, Patrick Connolly is a well-known architect with a lucrative business that allows them to live well despite having a small army of offspring. I remember that she was pregnant with her second child when Elliot was shot. I had convinced Consuelo to take me to the hospital to see him just a few days after my rescue. He was still in intensive care and hospital policy allowed him only two visitors at a time. His visitors were supposed to be family only, but since they allowed his partner and colleagues in to see him, his ex-wife decided it was ok for me to go in, too._

_Consuelo had taken me into the small, windowless room. The machines and IVs were scary, but with her holding my hand I felt safe enough. I just stood there and looked at him for a while, and then, before I left, I took his hand and told him, "You saved me. I'm ok. So is Ray Ray. Consuelo will take good care of us. We'll be just fine."_

_Of course, he didn't respond, and after another moment of silence, I leaned over and whispered to him, "I don't think I deserve what you did for me. After all, it's my fault Ray Ray and I got in trouble to begin with. But I'm gonna make sure I'm worth it. Some day, you'll be able to point at me and tell people, 'Look at him. When I saved that kid's life, I did a good thing.'"_

_Consuelo and I went back out to say goodbye, and Kathleen was there. She screamed at me saying, "It's your fault he was hurt. You should have been more careful. You should have had more sense. If you hadn't been so stupid, he never would have needed to find you and he wouldn't have gotten shot."_

_After a moment of stunned silence, Elizabeth had come to me and put an arm around my shoulders. "Don't mind my sister," she said. "It's just the hormones. The only person any of us really blame is the guy who fired the gun."_

_Suddenly, I know where to start. "I'm sorry about what happened to your dad, you know, and I've spent the last four years trying to make the most of the opportunity he's given me. I'll never be able to thank him enough, but I'm gonna keep trying."_

"_You're thinking about what I said that day at the hospital, aren't you?" she asks, and I can only nod. _

"_AJ," she says kindly, "that was horrible of me, and I'm sorry. I know my dad would have been ashamed of me to hear it. I was just angry because he and I had been arguing and I never had the chance to make up with him. We always argued a lot, and I never thought there would be a time when I couldn't say I was sorry."_

_I hold my breath for a moment. She looks like she is about to cry, but then she takes a deep breath and seems ok. Perhaps I shouldn't ask, but it's the only question that comes to mind. "What were you arguing about?"_

_She smiles ruefully and sighs. "How I was screwing up my life and turning out just like him."_

_We talk for a while until an older woman with gray hair and a round face arrives with a small herd of children in tow. Kathleen introduces me to her mother-in-law, Mary Connelly and her children, Patrick Andrew Connelly, Jr.; Elliot Matthew, who I know is named for her dad; Olivia who was named, I realize, for Elliot's partner in the Special Victims Unit; and the twins Justin Daniel, who is called JD and is wearing a cast up to his elbow on his right arm, and Sydnee, who is called Syd for short and has managed in the three or four minutes they have been here to pick the stitches out of a corner of the upholstery on the ottoman and pull a baseball-sized wad of stuffing out of it, which she tries to shove down inside her twin brother's cast. The children are then herded off to the nursery for bottles and naps and I ask her if she has chosen names for the two on the way._

"_Colin David and Michael Martin for my husband's father and uncle if they're boys," she says, "Katherine Anne and Maureen Elizabeth for my mother and two sisters if they are girls. We decided we wanted to be surprised when they came out, so we asked not to be told the sex."_

_She chuckles and says, "My brother forbade me to name any of my children for him. He says growing up with the nick name Dickie wasn't so bad, but no child should ever have to __**outgrow**__ it."_

_I laugh. I can totally understand where he was coming from. I was ten when I decided that I didn't want to be called Bertie any more, and sometimes Consuelo still slips._

"_So, when was the last time you went to visit your dad?" I ask._

"_It's been about two months," she says sadly. "There is no quick way from here to Staten Island and in my condition I'm afraid of what might happen if I have some kind of crisis and get caught in traffic, or, God forbid, on the ferry."_

_One of the children screams, there is a loud thump, and another one yells, and then there are tears. Her mother-in-law says she has everything under control, so Kathleen doesn't bother getting up, and for the first time I get a sense of just how ill she really is. I can see in her eyes and in the lines between her brows and at the corners of her moth that she is troubled by the distress of her children and wants to go comfort them, but all she can do is look over her shoulder and fret._

_I know I should probably go now, but I have one more question. I try to make it quick. _

"_Does someone take your kids to see their grandfather?"_

_She shakes her head. "Patrick is the only one who has ever met him, and he wasn't even a year old when my dad was shot. Maybe when they start asking questions I'll try explaining to them that his job was very dangerous and he got hurt, and then when they're older, I'll take them to see him; but for now, they don't ask, and I don't tell."_

_I thank her for her time and see myself out._

_Kathy Stabler, Elliot's wife is very clear about not wanting to talk to me. I actually have to put my foot in the door to keep her from shutting it in my face._

"_Liz told me why she took you to court," I say through the narrow space between the door and the fame. "I think you're the only person who still judges yourself for that. No one else I've talked to has even mentioned it. I think they all realize it was an impossible situation. Besides, I want to ask you about what he was like __**before**__ the shooting."_

_Without a word, she walks away from the door, leaving me to follow her or walk away. I choose to follow._

_We only speak for about fifteen minutes, and she never warms up to me. Still, I can tell he was the love of her life, and she thinks leaving him was the worst mistake she ever made. She weeps during most of our conversation. I have no doubt that she resents my intrusion into her private pain almost as much as she welcomes the opportunity to explain her decisions to someone whose judgment of her doesn't matter. If talking to me lets her get off her chest things she can't tell to someone whose opinion she values, I am more than happy to be of service. It's the least I can do. _

_I end our chat by asking when she last saw him._

"_Every Friday night," she answers. "I go out to Staten Island before I come home and give him a real shower. He used to love the feeling of hot water beating down on him. Sometimes, when he was working late and all the kids had gone to sleep, he'd come home and take a shower before bed, and he would just stand there until the water turned cold. I think he was trying to wash off what he did at work."_

_Her voice grows soft as she continues speaking and I can tell she is remembering other times when she shared the shower with him._

"_Anyway, the nurses put him in a special chair that they wheel into a six-by-six room with a cement floor. There's a drain in the middle of the floor, and the showerhead is on the end of a long hose. I take off my shoes and socks and roll up my slacks up to my knees, and I wash his hair and his back, shave him, check him for pressure sores and chafing in places he wouldn't want his kids to look, and then I just run the hot water over him until it runs out. They have a water heater just for that room, so it can take a little while. Then I dry him, rub his skin with moisturizer, trim his nails and his hair if it's needed, brush his teeth, and dress him. When all that's done, the nurses put him back to bed."_

_Her answer to my last question has changed my opinion of her completely. Before, I thought anything she might have done for Elliot would have been out of a sense of duty. He was her children's father and the man she was married to for twenty years. Now I see that her weekly ritual is an act of love. _

_I thank her and say goodbye._

_I refuse to meet Elizabeth at the The Brain Injury Center. I want to see her somewhere, anywhere else. I want to know what she's like when she's not playing nursemaid and caretaker. Finally we agree to meet for lunch at a little bistro in Manhattan that's not too far from my house. Maybe after we eat I'll go with her to see her dad. I didn't get out to Staten Island to visit him this morning because, before I took my shower, I spent four hours sitting in front of the computer in my underwear typing up what I got from her mom, sisters, and brother._

_As I dress, I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't a date, but I find I'm having a hard time accepting that. There's no good reason why it couldn't be. Sure, we met under unusual, tragic circumstances, but that didn't keep us from becoming friends. Why should it keep us from being a couple?_

_Because I'll always be the kid who got her dad shot and she'll always be the daughter of the cop who saved my life. I sigh and pull on my favorite old pair of Levis and a plain white oxford shirt of fine Egyptian cotton. I go into my bathroom and comb some gel through my still-wet hair. Then I part it on the side, muss it up with my fingers and shake my head. I hate fussing with my hair, but I like to look good, so last time I had it cut, I asked for a style I could do in two minutes or less. The girl spent twenty minutes trimming it and then literally styled it in two minutes. She charged me thirty-eight dollars for the cut and then talked me into paying another thirty-four for the same shampoo, conditioner, and gel she used. I know it was an outrageous price to pay, but hell, it's Uncle Jason's money and the time and irritation it has saved me has been well worth it. My chestnut brown hair will dry into a wavy style that looks like I spent half an hour subduing it with a blow-dryer and a curling iron._

_I decide not to shave today. Last year I overslept two days in a row and didn't have time to shave before school, and the girl who sat next to me in geometry said stubble was a good look for me. I don't know if that's the truth or if she just thought it looked good because most guys in ninth grade can't raise a beard yet. Maybe Liz will say something._

_Why would she say anything? It's not like we're dating._

_I make faces at myself in the mirror like I'm modeling for __**GQ **__or something like that. I feel so vain, but I really do think I could pull it off. I have a strong jaw line and a cleft chin, bright green eyes and a dimple in my left cheek when I smile. My body is fit and lean from endless hours of playing soccer and though I do wish I had a broader chest, my waist is trim and my legs are long. _

_I keep my jewelry simple. I wear a white gold Saint Jerome medal on a thin leather cord around my neck. Consuelo gave it to me the first Christmas after Uncle Jason took us in. She gave one to Ray Ray, too. Jerome is the patron saint of orphans and abandoned children, and between my parents and Uncle Jason, I think it's an eminently appropriate choice. _

_I also wear a TechnoMarine Maori watch with a stainless steel casing and a funky triangular platinum face etched with swirly patterns and inlaid with over one hundred diamonds. It has a synthetic sapphire crystal and the rubber watchband has the same swirls that are on the face. It's water resistant up to a depth of 30 meters, not that I'll ever need it to be. It's a durable, wearable, practical, beautifully understated work of art that cost Uncle Jason almost three thousand dollars. I know I'm a shit for spending his money just because I can, but cash is the only thing he has ever given me. The more I spend, the more he feels like he is doing something worthwhile._

_The only other jewelry I wear is one of my dad's rings. It's platinum with a cushion shaped sapphire about one centimeter square and diamond baguettes on two sides. I started wearing it when I first visited Elliot, I guess because it reminded me of my dad. Uncle Jason had it appraised for insurance purposes, and the value was set at twenty thousand dollars. I never take it off now._

_My girlfriend, Candace, wants me to get my ears pierced so she can buy me "some nice diamonds", but I don't know if I like her enough to permanently alter my anatomy. Sometimes she treats me like a puppy, buying me things she thinks are "cute" or "adorable" that don't appeal to my tastes at all. Then she gets pissed off when I don't wear them or I give them to Ray Ray. I'm afraid "nice diamonds" might be some enormous gaudy rocks that say, "If I don't have money, I'm sure as hell trying to look like I do." Maybe if Liz suggested it, I might reconsider._

_What's wrong with me? I'll do it for a girl I like, but not for a girl I'm supposed to love. I shake my head and feel like a dog, then I laugh. Last week it was dental metaphors. Now it's canine._

_I look in my closet and find a pair of brown Italian leather Cole Haan slip-ons with a woven upper and a decorative leather cord that's been worked through holes punched in the shoe from my ankle bone on the inside of my foot, around the toes, and to the ankle bone on the outside of my foot. They're the first matching pair of shoes I find, but they look good with the rest of my outfit._

_I check the time and realize I am running late. I grab my wallet, keys, and portfolio and run down the stairs. Consuelo catches me on the first floor landing, and as I kiss her on the cheek and tell her, "Hasta tarde," she calls shrilly after me, "Oye, chico! Debes usar calcetines!"_

_Even if she hadn't taught me to speak fluent Spanish, I have heard that phrase enough to know he is telling me I should be wearing socks._

_The bistro is actually close enough that I can walk there quicker than public transportation can carry me. I alternate walking a couple of blocks then jogging a couple of blocks so I can arrive on time and without breaking a sweat. On the way, I stop at a florist and consider buying Liz a rose as a thank you for doing the interview, but roses say too much. Instead I choose a single pink carnation with a fern and a spray of baby's breath. _

_Liz is waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of the bistro. She looks innocently sexy in a pink halter top and white Capri pants. She wears an adjustable pink baseball cap with her pony tail pulled through the opening in the back and pink canvas sneakers, and she carries a matching pink canvas tote bag. The upper part of her top is embroidered with baby blue, dark teal, and peach flowers as if I needed a reason to look at her breasts, and the way it shows off her cleavage is just mind boggling. I drag my eyes up to her face and hope she didn't notice me ogling her. I give her the carnation, she makes a joke about it matching her outfit, and after a short discussion, we agree on an outside table._

"_Wow, AJ, you look fantastic!" she says caressing my stubbly cheek. "The scruffy look is really good on you."_

_I feel myself blushing and lower my eyes. It takes a moment to recover from my embarrassment, and as I lift my gaze I am aware of it lingering on her boobs again. I have never obsessed about a woman's breasts before, but from what I can see of Liz's, they're perfect. Candace is as straight and skinny as a broomstick, but she has beautiful eyes, a great sense of humor, and a generous spirit. Liz has all of that, and a woman's figure. I guess you would say she's the total package._

_I feel ashamed of myself for comparing the two girls and am relieved when the waitress comes to take our orders. We decide to share a large shrimp cocktail for starters. Then I order the tequila chicken sandwich with chili mayonnaise and a Southwest salad. I'm oddly pleased when Liz orders a char grilled chicken BLT sandwich and potato salad. Taking Candace out to eat is a wasted effort. She's a strict vegan, so she usually ends up ordering an overpriced salad and if she sees so much as one stray bacon bit in it, she'll send it back. When the server returns with her corrected order, she still won't touch it because she's afraid they will have spit in it. I could understand all the fuss if she were doing it for religious reasons, but that's not it. She thinks she has to stay thin. She's sixteen and still thinks she's going to be a professional ballerina someday because no one has had the heart to tell her she's not that good. _

_I've done it again. I'm comparing Candace to Liz. It's not fair to Candace. There's no way she can measure up, I remind myself. You know Candace and all her faults. What you don't know about Liz you just imagine to be what you want. Liz is only perfect in your imagination. I finally force myself to stop thinking by making small talk._

"_I've had some interesting conversations with your family lately," I say._

_Liz grins. "I'm sure you have," she says in amusement. "Anything I should know?"_

_I give her question some thought and finally tell her, "I don't know, and even if I did, it wouldn't be my place to tell you."_

_Our shrimp cocktail comes out promptly, and I grab a shrimp and bite into it to keep myself from blabbing. I would tell her anything to have her turn that smile on me again._

_She chuckles and agrees with me. "I suppose not. So, what did you want to ask me?"_

_I think about it a moment, and decide that, since I like her smile, I'll ask her something that will make her smile. _

"_What's your favorite memory of your dad?"_

_She breaks immediately into a brilliant grin and I have to remind myself not to compare it to Candace's slightly horsey smile._

"_Christmas of 1999 through May of 2000" she says. "Every time he tucked us in my brother and I begged him to read _**'Twas the Night Before Christmas**,_ because we wanted Santa to come again. Santa didn't show up until the next Christmas, but it was fun hearing my dad read the list of reindeer in his Santa voice."_

_I smile, trying to picture her as a little girl. I can see her with that same wide grin and her eyes sparkling excitedly._

"_I liked _**Where the Wild Things Are**,"_ I tell her._

"_Oh, that was one of my brother's favorite books," she says. "But I liked the Olivia stories."_

"_Olivia?" I frown, knowing that Elliot's ex-partner had no connection to this conversation, but not understanding why her name came up._

"_Olivia the pig," says says. "They were kind of girlie, but Daddy would read them to me and do the voices and everything. He's such a ham!"_

_I laugh hysterically, and she looks at me in confusion. "What?" she asks with a perplexed little smile. "What's so funny?"_

"_Your dad read to you about a pig and you called him a ham," I finally manage to say._

_She laughs a little at that and says, "I guess it was kind of funny."_

"_What else can you tell me about your father?" I ask._

"_Lots," she says, taking a thick scrapbook out of her tote bag. She smiles again, softly this time, and her eyes are luminous with the pleasure of sharing her memories and grief because that's all she really has left of her father any more._

_She moves her chair around to sit beside me at our table so that we can look through the book together while we eat. We go through page after page of baby pictures, family portraits, holiday memories and the like. There are newspaper articles, too, and as we talk, I get the impression that she and her dad had a very special relationship unlike the one her other siblings shared with him._

_We spend almost three hours talking and the servers do not bother us. I am here often enough for them to know that they will get a good tip when I leave because I take into account the money they would have made from other customers in the time I linger. There have been times when I have spent the day writing at my table, eaten two meals there, and left a tip that was more than twice the bill. I can afford to be generous. It is all Uncle Jason's money._

_Liz tells me all kinds of things about her father, her siblings, and her mom. I tell her about my parents, Ray Ray, Consuelo, and Uncle Jason. I am surprised how often we laugh. We enjoy dessert and coffee. She has a slice of frozen, chocolate-dipped cheesecake, and I have a slice of lemon meringue pie. Finally I ask her when she last saw her dad._

_She looks at me as if I have lost my mind, and I shrug. "I've gotten some interesting reactions," I tell her. "So I decided to ask everyone."_

"_I was there yesterday," she says. "I haven't missed a day in over three years."_

_I nod, and to my surprise, she continues. "I . . . I had the flu. I could barely make it to the bathroom to pee. I went six days without seeing him, and when I went back, his pillow was completely soaked in drool and he had a rash and bedsores from not being changed, bathed, and turned enough. __Now, when I'm sick, I wear a mask, gown, and gloves so he doesn't catch it, but I go anyway."_

"_What will you do if you're bedridden again?" I ask._

_The tears well up in her eyes. "I don't know," she gasps so quietly I have to strain to hear her. "I guess I'll call Mom or Maureen or maybe Olivia, but they're all so busy."_

_I nod and put a hand on her arm. She covers it with her other hand and laces our fingers together. "You can call me, too," I tell her._

_One tear spills over and I decide not to go visit Elliot with her. I think she needs the time alone with him today. I am also afraid her sorrow might be too much for me to bear. She smiles and thanks me. She kisses me on the cheek. Our eyes meet, and she leans forward again and kisses me chastely on the lips._

_I feel myself blush crimson and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I take a swallow of my coffee to loosen it._

"_I . . . I need to get home," I say nervously. "I . . . uh . . . I'll see you later. Take care of yourself, and thanks for lunch."_

_I throw a wad of cash on the table, and make a hasty retreat; but I stop at the corner to look back. She is still flipping through her scrapbook, but she seems to sense my eyes on her. She looks up, finds me in the crowd, smiles brilliantly, and waves._


	11. Anniversary

_Today is my three-month "anniversary" with Candace. I've told her there is no such thing because the very word "anniversary" implies the passage of a year, but she insists we celebrate. She has been trying to get in touch with me all week, sending e-mails, voice mails, IMs, and text messages and driving poor Consuelo to distraction with her phone messages. She keeps asking when I am going to get my ears pierced. I suspect she has already bought me the earrings I didn't want anyway and wants to see me wearing them._

_It's not that I don't want to talk to her, I just can't right now. I have been obsessed with writing up my interviews with Elliot's family. At the moment, getting those just right seems like the most important thing in the world. I need to stay in a certain frame of mind to do justice to all the things his wife and kids have confided in me, all the secrets and intimate details of their lives, and I can't do that with Candace around. She says she's worried that I don't love her anymore, but I keep telling her she's wrong._

_I guess I love her, she is my girlfriend, after all; but she is vain, shallow, and self-centered. She can't help it. It's just the way she has been brought up. He parents reward her for everything she does, even if it is sometimes less than mediocre. Last year, they turned the basement of their Park Avenue townhouse into a dance studio because she signed up to dance in the school talent show. It didn't matter to them that she never practiced her routine, that she fell on stage, that she came in dead last, or that she didn't really have any talent for dancing. Her parents say she had the courage to get up in front of her peers and perform, and that deserves a reward. I say she lacked the good judgment to avoid making a fool of herself in front of the entire student body and she is the way she is because her parents have more money than sense. Of course, I don't say it very loud or to anyone who would listen, I'm not that mean._

_Candace can be very sweet and thoughtful, if she likes you enough to make the effort. She's always buying her friends expensive gifts and using her clout to get people into the hottest clubs. She just doesn't understand why that sort of thing isn't a big deal to me. I like to party as much as the next guy, but I guess I'm so happy to be alive that I just don't need the phony thrills my peers get from the club scene._

_At the moment Elliot was shot, a police sniper fired on Henry Micah Briggs and I saw his face erupt into a wet spray of blood as a bullet tore through is skull at the temple. Since then, I have learned that snipers __**always**__ shoot to kill. That's the whole point of having them on the police force, to eliminate a suspect so they can rescue hostages when all attempts to negotiate have failed. If the sniper that day had only had a clear shot a fraction of a second sooner, things would have been different for Elliot, but it's no more the sniper's fault than it is Elliot's, or mine, I suppose._

_When the police searched Briggs's house, they found an 8' x 8' brick cell in the basement complete with an army cot, bucket toilet, stainless steel washbasin, and leg iron chained to an eye-bolt in the floor. They also found DNA from at least eight missing boys and six bodies in the yard, only three of which matched the samples from the cell. Perhaps most horrifying of all, Briggs faithfully kept a detailed journal filled with graphic descriptions of the sadistic sexual tortures he performed on his captives and audio tapes of the boys crying for their mothers, never their fathers, only their mothers. I still wonder if he would have kept me alive and continued to torture me forever because I wouldn't have cried out for my mom knowing that she was dead. Then again, maybe I would have called for her in a delirium of pain and fear. I thank God I will never know. Computer voice analysis indicated that Briggs raped and tortured at least fifteen boys and the journal went back almost twenty years, to when he was only a little older than I am now._

_Consuelo tried to shield Ray Ray and me from the knowledge of what Briggs had planned for us by keeping us from seeing the nightly news and the local papers, but Yahoo picked up the story, and she didn't watch us too carefully when we were playing computer games. It was easy to go online and read all about it. For a while, it was an obsession. I remember sitting there for hours at a time, reading the same articles over and over in Yahoo News, MSN, __**The New York Times**__ and __**The Ledger**__ online editions. I'd search every hour for updates on the story and new details about Briggs. Consuelo never figured it out, because I always had one game or another open in the task bar at the bottom of my screen. One click, and the evidence of my research was hidden. _

_One thing I never learned that I was desperate to know was __**why**__ he did it. What happened to Henry Micah Briggs to make him prey upon children? I can't imagine he was born that way. Someone must have done something to him, damaged him somehow, or perverted his humanity. And if that was the case, then what happened to __**that**__ person? It had to start somewhere with someone. I wanted to know who was to blame and who to watch out for._

_I tried to tell Candace about it once, but she just said, "Al, that's disgusting. I didn't need to know that." She also reminded me that "that was a long time ago" and I needed to "get over it and move on" with my life._

_**She **__may not have needed to know it, but __**I**__ needed her to know it._

_I told Elizabeth Stabler about Briggs's dungeon once, too, while we were sitting in the visitors' lounge at The Brain Injury Center waiting for the nurses to finish making Elliot's bed. She put a comforting hand on my arm and said, "That's just horrible, AJ, but I'm glad you told me."_

_I must have looked surprised because she went on to explain._

"_I really don't understand __**why**__ my dad chose the job he does or __**how**__ he does it. Having four children of his own must make it positively unbearable at times. But knowing what that man did, what he saved you and your brother from, I know Dad would say it was worth all of this." She lifted her hands, her gesture encompassing the visitors' lounge, The Brain Injury Center, and all that it implied for her father and her family._

_We sat quietly for a moment, staring at the wall, and then she shook me gently by the shoulder and clarified, "Hey, he'd tell me __**you**__ were worth it."_

_I swallow hard as I tighten the knot in my tie. Candace insists that I take her out to eat "some place nice for our 'anniversary'," and to her "someplace nice" requires a jacket and tie. I am unfairly comparing her to Liz again. Candace couldn't possibly understand how I feel because she has never had anything really terrible happen to her._

_Between dinner and dessert, Candace hands me a small, black, velvet-covered box. I open it and see two large glittering diamonds of superior quality. I only know they are superior quality because Candace can afford and would settle for nothing less than the very best. _

"_Earrings," I say, not trying to hide my distaste. _

"_I guess you'll have to get your ears pierced now," she says cheerfully. She does this sort of thing all the time and expects people to accommodate her, but I won't act as if I like something just for her benefit when I have made it perfectly clear that I don't want it in the first place. _

"_Oh, I don't think so," I tell her. Candace usually seems to appreciate my honesty. I am probably the only person in her life who doesn't think, or pretend to think, that every thing she does is just perfect. _

"_What are you, a wuss?" _

_I cock one eyebrow rakishly and say, "Not at all, but just look at me. I'm already so beautiful that any further embellishment would be an extravagance, an embarrassment of riches."_

_She frowns a moment and then grins. For some reason surpassing all understanding, she finds vanity and arrogance charming. It's easy for me to put on an act to amuse her. I just use big words._

"_Well, if you don't like them, what can I get you?" she demands. "I have to give you something for our anniversary!" She sees me as a riddle to be solved, but I'm not really that hard to figure out if she would just listen to me._

"_There is nothing you can buy that I want or need," I tell her. "But you can go somewhere with me tomorrow. There's someone I want you to meet."_

_She looks intrigued. I don't know why I've suggested it, and I really hope I won't regret it. I guess maybe I just want her to understand me better._

"_I'll pick you up at one."_

_She nods, our dessert comes, and the conversation shifts to her summer dance recital and whether I'll go or not._

"_The Brain Injury Center? Al, what are we doing here?" Candace asks as I help her out of the car. Usually I take the ferry to Staten Island and then catch a bus to Port Richmond, get a transfer, and take the 54 to the hospital, but Candace shuns public transportation. She won't even take a taxi if she can help it because, "you don't know who's been there before or what they might have done in the back seat." _

_At least she's a good driver. Driving in New York one time when being self-centered and spoiled could be considered a virtue. If you're the kind of person who will let the other guy go first, you'll never get anywhere._

"_I want you to meet someone very important to me," I say leading her across the lot and down the sidewalk, "the man who saved my life."_

"_You mean the cop? What? Is he a security guard here or something like that?" _

_I would laugh at her cluelessness, but the reality is too sad._

"_No, he's a patient," I tell her._

"_A __**patient**__? You mean you brought me to meet a __**vegetable**__? Or is he retarded?" She doesn't even try to hide her disgust at the thought. _

_I grab her arm and turn her to face me. "Don't say that," I say heatedly, suddenly realizing this was a very bad idea. "The only difference between you and the people in here is a little bit of luck."_

_She frowns slightly and says, "Gee, Al, I'm sorry, but if he's . . . damaged, he's hardly the same man who saved you, and if he's comatose, what's there to meet anyway?"_

"_If you come along, maybe you'll find out," I tell her, "but you better be respectful. There's a chance he can hear you. Don't say anything in front of him or about him that you wouldn't say to me about me."_

_She tucks a lock of hair behind her left ear and nods. She looks scared, and I feel a little sorry for her. She has been very fortunate in her life. Her parents are young and healthy people, and her two grandmothers and one surviving grandfather are vital, active senior citizens. The only person she has ever lost was her mother's father, and that was when she was a baby too young to remember. This might be the first time she's been in a hospital since the day she was born._

_I take her hand in mine and give it a reassuring squeeze. "It's ok," I tell her._

"_Elliot, this is Candace Billingsley, my girlfriend. Candace, this is Detective Elliot Stabler, the cop who saved my life." _

_She stands in the doorway looking wide-eyed and frightened, like a doe about to flee. "Come on in, Candace, and say hello," I coax her._

_She takes one step inside the room, clears her throat softly and says quietly, "Hello, Elliot."_

_I keep quiet as I check the log by his bed, hoping Candace will rise to the occasion and carry the conversation for a moment or two. She only slightly disappoints me. Instead of taking the initiative and chatting him up, she looks to me and says, "Now what?"_

_I sigh quietly. At least she is willing to try. "It is customary to shake hands when you meet someone," I point out._

_She looks horrified, but takes a step forward. The she freezes like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, puts her hands behind her back, moves to lean against the wall and shakes her head. _

"_I can't," she whispers._

_My stomach washes with acid. I don't know if I am angry, hurt, embarrassed, ashamed of her, or heartbroken for Elliot. Maybe it's all of those things, but for Elliot's benefit, I keep my tone light._

"_You'll have to excuse Candace, Elliot," I say, trying to put a chuckle in my voice. "She's never had a run-in with the law before so she's a bit nervous. According to the log, we need to work your legs today."_

"_Does he always drool like that?" Candace asks, coming a step closer as I take the splints off Elliot's legs. _

"_Only in his sleep," I tell her. She nods her understanding. I can imagine Elliot chuckling. Elizabeth told me he has a dry, satirical sense of humor like mine. I often think that if I had known Elliot before he was hurt, even if he hadn't saved me, I would have admired him._

"_Why don't you wipe it off?"_

"_You know how when you get a cold and your nose runs constantly, it gets really sore if you keep wiping it?"_

_She nods. _

"_It's the same way with his face," I tell her. "It would be really bad for his skin to keep rubbing it, even with a soft cloth, every few minutes. The nurses check on him and turn him every couple of hours. They clean him up then and change his pillow case."_

_She just nods again._

"_Why don't you help me exercise his legs?" I ask, knowing, but not caring, that I am pushing her boundaries._

_She shakes her head and cowers against the wall again. "I . . . I don't know what to do."_

"_That's ok. I'll show you." I really want her to do this. Elliot is a very important part of my life and I need her to accept him._

"_What if I hurt him?"_

"_You won't," I assure her. "You'd have to try pretty hard to hurt him just exercising his legs. Please, Candace, it's easier with two people."_

_She hesitates for a long moment, and just when I think she's going to refuse, she steps toward the bed and takes a deep breath. I show her how to hold his feet to flex and point them explaining how each motion stretches different tendons and muscles so he will be able to walk again when he wakes up. When she reaches out to touch him, her hands are shaking, but she copies my movements, tentatively at first, then with a little more confidence. After working his feet, ankles, and toes for ten minutes, we go to work on his legs, gently moving his knees towards his chest to stretch his hamstrings._

_I look at Candace, and see her watching intently as Elliot's limbs move under her touch. Given a little time, she may discover, as I have, that physical therapy for a coma patient can be very therapeutic for the caregiver, too. There is something healing and intimate about moving another person's limbs for him, about doing some small thing for someone who needs so much care and attention._

_She must feel my gaze on her face, because she looks up at me and smiles anxiously. "Am I doing it right?"_

_I nod. "You're doing fine."_

_Everything goes to hell on the last exercise. Candace is holding Elliot's shoulders to the mattress, gently pinning him as I turn his legs from side to side to stretch the muscles in his waist and back. It has to be done very carefully to give him a proper stretch without pulling muscles, and I wouldn't trust Candace with it anymore that Liz would have trusted me the first time I helped her exercise him. As I move his knees to the right and hold them down, there is a soft, wet, splattering noise accompanied by an unpleasant odor._

_Candace laughs and says, "You pig. Did you just fart?"_

"_No."_

"_Well, it wasn't me."_

_We hear the sound again and the odor grows stronger._

"_Ewwwww! Oh, my God, Al!" Then her eyes light with understanding. "Oh, gross! He just messed himself! Eww!" She takes her hands off his shoulders, and his upper body turns._

"_Come on, Candace, let's finish this exercise," I say evenly. "We only have three more reps to go."_

"_No, no way, Al. This is disgusting. Someone has got to change him." Suddenly, she looks horrified and sounds hysterical. "You're __**not**__ going to make me help you change him. That's too gross. I . . . I just can't do that. There's no way I'm going to change him. I didn't even want to help with the exercises, but you insisted. Go get a nurse to change his diaper. That's what they're paid for."_

_She's backing away and shaking her hands as if he had been covered in shit from head to toe while she was touching him. She's overwrought. There are even tears in her eyes when she bumps into the wall and gasps, "Oh, God, Al, oh, God. That's just nasty. I can't do it. I __**won't **__do it!"_

_I look at Elliot, and his eyes are open, staring earnestly at my panicking girlfriend. I want to apologize for her behavior, but I doubt he'd understand. I do know he would appreciate a prompt end to the histrionics, though, so I grab Candace by the wrist and lead her out of the room and down the hall. As we pass the nurses' station, I tell Allison, the nurse on desk duty, "Detective Stabler just had a BM. Could you get someone in there to clean him up?"_

_She nods an acknowledgement and I hear her paging another nurse on the speaker as Candace and I continue on our way out of the building._

"_Why doesn't she do it herself?" Candace asks, and then crows triumphantly. "See, I'm not the only one who thinks it's disgusting. She should do it herself. It's her job."_

_I am familiar with the routines at The Brain Injury Center and I tell Candace, "She isn't allowed to leave the desk unattended for any reason. She's watching the monitors that track the patients' conditions. Even if there was a fire, someone would have to stay there until the last patient was evacuated."_

_I know this for a fact because six months ago, I was here when a bottle of bleach leaked onto some cleaning rags and eventually ignited them in a maintenance closet. Allison wasn't on duty that day, but Laurel Lee, the nurse who was, called the fire department and stayed at her post until they arrived. Then one of the fire-fighters with paramedic training took over until all of the patients were moved to safety._

_I finally get Candace out of the building and push her away from me. We stand on the sidewalk in the bright sunlight and argue._

"_What is your problem?"_

"_He shit himself, Al, and it's gross. That's my problem."_

"_He can't help himself," I remind her, "he's in a coma."_

"_That just means it's not his fault. It doesn't make it any less disgusting," she says with a sneer and a roll of her eyes. "Look, I probably overreacted and I'm sorry, but you just expect too much of me."_

_My hand flies up with a will of its own and I realize just in time that my intention is to strike her. I close my fist, fold my arms, and step away._

"_He has a wife and four kids who live with that reality every day, Candace," I tell her. "If asking you to treat the hero who saved my life with a modicum of respect is too much, then I think you need to leave."_

_She holds out her hand. "Give me the keys, then."_

"_You're in no condition to drive," I say. I'm not just being spiteful. She's upset, and if she got in a wreck, I wouldn't be able to live with myself._

"_Fine, I'll wait in the car," she snaps._

"_No. You need to leave now."_

"_Then how am I supposed to get home?"_

"_If you would take a cab, I would pay your fare, but since that's beneath you, I guess you'll just have to call a ride." I'm past the point of having any sympathy for her, and as she rummages in her purse for her cell phone, I walk away. My writing portfolio is in the car and I head out to the parking lot to retrieve it._

"_Hi, Kevin? It's Candace Billingsley."_

_Kevin Crandol is the guy Candace dated before me. He'll be a junior in the fall. He was pissed at me when she dumped him and has been trying to come between us ever since._

"_Yeah, I need a ride . . . Al dragged me out to Staten Island to meet some guy he knows who's in a coma, and I'm getting bored hanging out with the veggies . . . I don't know. You've got a nav system in your car. Use it."_

_Kevin drives a blue metallic BMW Z4 M Roadster. It's a little two-seater convertible, and with that big-ass six-cylinder three hundred thirty horsepower engine out front, it looks like a giant blue dick rocketing down the highway. _

"_Brielle and Bradley is the closest intersection," I tell Candace as I return to the hospital with my portfolio. I just want her to be gone as soon as possible. She repeats the information to Kevin, and I walk into the building leaving her to wait for him alone._

_I hear the nurse in the room talking to Elliot as she changes him. Her voice is calm and reassuring, and I wonder if he has been upset by Candace's behavior. If he has, how would she know? She smiles at me as she exits the room and says, "You can go in now."_

_The first thing I do is stand beside the bed and place a hand on his arm, and his eyes open and look at me. They are a startling blue and for a moment I lose my breath. _

"_I want to apologize for Candace's behavior," I tell him. "I knew she would be uncomfortable here, but I never expected her to freak out like that. I'm sorry."_

_I know if he was aware of what was going on, he must have been humiliated. Hopefully he was just as oblivious as he has always been._

"_I've sent her home," I say, "and I won't be bringing her back."_

_He blinks, and I wonder if it means something._

"_I've brought my writing portfolio," I say. "I've finished my interviews with your wife and kids. I thought you might give me your opinion on what I've written."_

_I walk around the bed to the comfortable chair on the other side of it and sit down. When I look up, I see that his eyes have followed me and my heart begins to pound. The action isn't recognized on the Glasgow Coma Scale, but it must be significant. There is another scale to measure depth of coma called the Rancho Scale for the Rancho Los Amigos rehab hospital where it was developed. At level three, the patient can respond to simple commands. I take his hand in mine._

"_Can you squeeze my hand, Elliot?"_

_I hold my breath and wait. I wait until my lungs burn and my chest hurts. When I have to breathe again, I try not to let him hear my sigh of disappointment._

"_Maybe tomorrow," I say lightly. "Now, how would you like to hear what your son has to say about his hero?"_


	12. The Only Son

Lancaster – 10

**The Only Son  
Richard Michael Stabler**

My dad taught me to fly. It was an idea I got from the Superman movies we used to watch together. I was about four years old and I snuck out through my sister's bedroom window onto the back porch roof. He saw me just as I was about to take my flying leap into the wild blue yonder, and he yelled at me. At the time, I thought he was mad, but now I realize I had just scared the hell out of him. Thinking back, I also realize that he moved to stand right under me so if I was stupid enough to jump, he'd be there to catch me.

I went back inside and hid in my bedroom because I thought I was going to get a spanking. He almost never spanked us, but that day, it seemed like he was willing to make an exception. By the time my Dad got upstairs, I was already crying. He calmed me down and explained that Superman was from Krypton. He had special powers that made him able to fly. Since I wasn't from Krypton, I would have just fallen and gotten hurt.

That made me cry even more. Next to my dad, Superman was the coolest superhero on the planet. I would rather have taken a spanking than be told I couldn't fly.

Dad gave me a hug and messed up my hair and said, "Give me a few days. I'll figure out a way for you to fly."

A couple of days later, he came home early from work for a change. It didn't often happen, and it was a huge treat when he did because he always spent the time playing with us. Anyway, he called for me to come and get in the car. He sounded so excited that my sisters got mad because they weren't invited to come along. We drove to a park near our house and he told me he'd figured out a way for me to fly.

We went over to the horizontal ladder, you know, the thing kids hang from and travel from one end to the other hand over hand. "Now you have to close your eyes and use your imagination a little, but if you do, I promise you can go anywhere in the world."

I was four years old, I wasn't stupid; but my dad was so enthusiastic that I just did what he told me to do. He boosted me up and I scrambled hand over hand from one end of the climber to the other. At the end, he let go of me for a split second and caught me against his chest as if I had just come back from a flight.

"Oof! We've gotta work on those landings," he laughed as he stumbled just a bit under the impact. "Where did you go?"

"The South Pole!" I told him.

* * *

Lancaster – 11 

"Really? Did you get cold?" he asked as if he really believed me.

"Just a little."

"Well, what did you see there?"

"The penguins," I told him. "They were incubating eggs on their feet. The males take care of them until they hatch while the females are out feeding in the ocean. Then the females come back to take care of the babies and the males go out to swim and feed." At the time I was fascinated by penguins and knew more than a four-year-old probably should have about them.

We spent about an hour at the park flying, and every trip I went somewhere different. I saw a bullfight in Mexico and a moose in Canada. I went to Disney World and spoke with Mickey Mouse and then to Springfield to play with Bart Simpson. We worked on my landings and I got better and better at them until it was hardly any effort for him to catch me.

I was always really curious about my dad's work, but he didn't want to tell me about it. I understood why, at least as much as a kid can understand such things, but it didn't stop me from being curious. I was really proud of him and I kept bugging him to come and talk to my class until he finally did. It was too cool when he passed his badge around for everyone to see. I was the most popular kid in school that day.

I was about fourteen when my mom left my dad, and she took us with her. I didn't get to see him much before that because it seemed like he was working all the time, and I saw even less of him after. I was really pissed off at my mom for a while, but once they worked out a schedule, he never missed a day. He was late a couple of times, but he never let us down. He disappointed us less after they split than he did when they were together. Sometimes, he even showed up unexpectedly. Mom was usually cool with that unless we had other plans and he didn't call before he came over.

Once we had a father-son weekend planned, and Mom was supposed to drop me off at the station. Dad was still out working a case, which really made Mom mad. Considering his work, she really didn't want to leave me alone at his desk, but Captain Cragen said it would be ok. There were some pictures up on the wall of a dead woman, and when my dad got back, the first thing he did was tell me to quit looking at them. I couldn't help myself. They looked just like a sequence out of the game _Intensity_ and I told my dad about it. I could tell he was a little freaked out, but the next thing I knew, I was showing him, Captain Cragen, and Detective Tutuola how it was played.

A while later, I was at his place and he told me they got a conviction in that case. Then he started asking me why I had to play my video games all the time. I told him it was fun

* * *

Lancaster – 12 

and I liked it, and he suggested we do something together like play a board game, watch a movie, or just talk. I chose talk because it was something we didn't do often.

At first Dad didn't know what to say. I think most parents just have this idea that when they sit down to talk with their kids it has to be about something important like sex, drugs, or drinking. At least he didn't ask me about school. We talked about basketball because I was playing on the seventh- and eighth-grade team at my school, and we talked about the Mets and Yankees spring training games; and at some point, I mentioned how he used to help me fly when I was little. I could tell it made him happy that I remembered that.

We kept the game up until I was really a little too big for it, but I think he enjoyed it as much as I did, so I never told him when I started to think it was silly. I just waited until I was too big for him to hold up over his head like that and he quit suggesting it. Since I turned eighteen and don't need my mother's consent anymore, I've tried hang gliding, bungee jumping, parasurfing, and skydiving, but I've never had as much fun as I did when I was flying with my dad.


	13. Local Response

_I finish reading about Rick Stabler and look over at Elliot to see that his eyes are closed. After a moment he opens them, and then shuts them again._

"_Well, I think you're getting tired," I say. "Why don't I save the rest of these for another time?"_

_His eyes open again and his hand reaches out clumsily to grab my wrist. I am surprised by the swiftness of his movements and the strength of his grip. He is still weak, but he is stronger than I expected. Excitedly, I press the button to call the nurse._

"_Ok, I promise, I'll read the rest of them, but first the doctor needs to examine you."_

_He doesn't respond, but I can't help but feel hopeful._

_Ten minutes later, I don't know what to think. He's only scored a nine on the Glasgow Coma Scale which means he's still in a moderate coma. His eye response was a three out of four because he opens his eyes when we talk to him. His motor response was five out of six because when the doctor pinched him, he reached up and tried to push him away. But his verbal score is only a one. He hasn't made a sound in five years. _

_On the Rancho Scale, scoring him at level three, which is called Local Response, is generous. He orients toward voices and tracks our movements with his eyes, but only inconsistently; and he doesn't follow even the simplest commands._

"_He's actually doing very well," the doctor tells me out in the hall, because like Elizabeth, he believes that Elliot can hear everything that we say around him. "His progress over the past several weeks has been amazing. I doubt he'll ever get back to normal functioning, but I'm sure Elizabeth would be thrilled if he could just squeeze back whenever she took his hand."_

_I feel a tremendous weight on my spirit now. He was a vibrant, dynamic individual when I first met him. I have heard from the people who knew him best that he lived exuberantly, loved his family, and had a wicked sense of humor. He was brave and selfless, heroic._

_And now we are hoping that someday he might be able to squeeze his daughter's hand._


	14. The Achiever

Lancaster – 13

**The Achiever  
Maureen Meredith Stabler**

I often wonder if my dad would be disappointed that I haven't married and had children yet. I knew without having to be told that my sisters and brother and I were the light of his life, and I am sure he would want the same happiness for me. I just don't want to make the same mistakes he did.

Just like my dad, I'm good at my job, take pride in my work, and help a lot of people, but I also wonder if he would be upset that I went into a career so similar to his. His unit is called Special Victims because they handle sex crimes, child abuse, and crimes against the elderly, but I'm the one who really deals with the victims. He dealt more with the bastards who hurt them.

I know he would be troubled by the language I have started using. This job makes you that way. You can't see all the harm these evil people cause and not be angry, but at the same time, you have to remain compassionate and caring so that the people you are trying to help can trust you. So you vent when you can and call them what they are, and then you turn on the charm when you deal with the victims.

My dad wasn't so good at that. Venting, I mean. It's part of the reason my mom left him. They never knew their voices carried right into my room, but I knew what they talked about. I heard him cry out when he had nightmares, too.

See, his cases really weighed on him, probably because he was the only one in the squad who was still married and had young children. Mom could tell when something was bothering him and she would try to get him to talk, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't talk to her or our priest or the department shrinks. The only person he would talk to was his partner, Olivia, and she couldn't help him because she was dealing with the same crap.

Mom was jealous that he could talk to Olivia and not her, and she was jealous that he spent so much time with Liv, too; but mostly she was upset that he wasn't dealing with his emotional baggage. He'd keep things bottled up until he lost it, and then do something stupid and self-destructive. None of us were afraid of him, but sometimes we worried that he would get hurt or fired.

And sometimes he was just a pain in the ass. I remember this one case he had where some girl my age met some freak through the internet. The next thing I know, he goes all Great Protector on me, and starts reading my e-mail. I caught him because I told him I was going to a friend's house to study for a test and he miraculously knew the test wasn't for another week. Oh, I was pissed off!

Looking back on it, I can say that the look on his face when he knew he was busted was hilarious, but at the time, I was too angry to notice. He was all sheepish at first. He knew

* * *

Lancaster – 14 

what he had done was wrong, that it was unfair to me. But then he got defensive. He was the _dad;_ it was his _job_ to snoop in my stuff to make sure I wasn't getting into anything that might get me hurt. I had a fit and asked him if he wanted to read my journal.

He said, "No . . . You have a journal?"

That was more than I could take. I don't even remember what I said then. I just yelled at him and left the room in a huff. It might have been different if I was naïve, but I knew more about cyber safety than he did at the time.

A few days later, I was working on a paper, and couldn't log on to the computer to finish typing it. He'd put a child lock on it. I could have bypassed it, no problem, but that would have made my dad even crazier. Then he tried to take it off for me and couldn't.

I had to fix it for him, and that embarrassed him. I felt kind of bad, but what could I do? I asked him when he was going to start trusting me, and he said he already did trust me; but he was afraid of the freaks who were using the internet to find children to hurt.

I think that was the first time I really understood how scary the world was to my dad. He wasn't afraid of anything, except what might hurt his family, and he saw everything as a potential danger to us. Sometimes, I'm surprised we were allowed to make toast.

Then one day this cult leader killed a bunch of kids in the apartment he shared with all of his followers. My dad and his unit were among the first people there. I don't know what he saw that day, but they sent him home because he didn't seem to be coping very well. He refused to talk to anyone about it, so he wasn't allowed to work the case. He was off for a week. Three days after he went back to work, my mom filed for legal separation.

I saw him a few weeks later, and his knuckles were all scabbed up. When I asked him about it, he said he got mad and hit something. I told him he would have had to hit something very hard and more than once to do that kind of damage, and he just grunted.

I love my dad and I want him to be proud of me, but I don't want to repeat his mistakes. So I'm still single, don't even date, really, just a movie with a friend now and then. I think that much would make him happy. He still wants me to be his little girl, I am sure, and after the mess Kathleen got into, I know he would be relieved to find out that at least one of his kids is celibate. But if he ever were to ask if I was a virgin, I wouldn't answer. I just have to torture him with something. Besides, it really is none of his business anymore.

You see, by the time he and Mom separated, I was ready to be on my own. I was really serious about my education and that was my only focus. I always cared about my grades

* * *

Lancaster – 15 

and can remember being devastated about getting a B in English even though dad thought it was great. But once I knew what I wanted to do, I was like a machine. I graduated college _magna cum laude_ and finished my Master's Degree in three semesters.

Kathleen felt like she was getting shafted when our parents split. I was leaving home and Liz was moving into the room Kat and I had shared. Kat should have had the chance to be the big sister, I guess, to be the center of attention and boss the younger ones around for a while. Being the middle child is tough because the oldest does everything first and the youngest is always cuter, and when the youngest are twins, that makes it even worse.

Then there was the divorce hanging over everyone's head. She was just at that age when teenagers start getting rebellious. All I had to do to freak my dad out was get a henna tattoo. She had to get busted for DUI and start dating a real sleaze ball who was old enough to buy beer for her friends when she wanted to pick a fight with Dad. If he had been around more then, I don't think she would have gotten pregnant at nineteen, but I guess everything worked out all right.

Liz and Dickie are the ones who have suffered the most, I think. They've pretty much grown up without him. He was never around when they were little because he was always working. When they were young teens, he and mom were separated, and then he got shot. They never really had the chance to get to know him at all.

Liz especially has had to grow up really fast, but I blame her lawyer, Barry Moredock, for that. It really kind of sucks. On the one hand, I want to say he should have just told her, "Listen to your mother," and refused to take the case. On the other hand, if Daddy ever wakes up, and if he's ok when he does, I can't deny that Liz and Mr. Moredock did the right thing.

I think we've all spoiled Dickie, because he's the baby, and a boy at that. How he ever escaped becoming a mama's boy, I'll never know. And John Munch, though he's really stepped up to the plate and helped Dickie along, probably isn't quite the role model my dad had in mind for his only son. He's a really good guy, but he's emotionally immature, has four failed marriages, and is more paranoid than my dad ever was.

Anyway, I digress. I don't expect to start dating seriously or to have a family any time in the foreseeable future, either, because I'm on call seven days a week. I deal with a lot of kids and some rather childish adults as it is, and I don't think I could ever give my best to my family _and_ my job. So one of these days I will either have to find different employment or give up the idea of being a wife and a mother. It's a stressful job, so I work out at a boxing gym and beat the stuffing out of the heavy bag three times a week, and I see a shrink every Tuesday.

I refuse to make the same mistakes my dad made, but sometimes I worry that I may be making more than a few of my own.


	15. Gears

_As I finish reading, I look over at Elliot. He is watching me intently. Not just staring, watching. I can almost see the gears turning behind those sapphire blue eyes. _

"_What are you thinking about?" I ask him. "If you would just tell me what's troubling you, I could help you figure it out."_

_Maybe it's me that's bothering him. After all, I may know his daughter fairly well, and I have gotten to know the rest of his family and some of his friends recently; but I am practically a stranger to him. Maybe he's wondering about this strange young man who sits here and reads to him about the people he loves._

"_My name's AJ, by the way," I tell him. "Five years ago you saved me."_

_I see his Adam's apple move as he swallows and it is then that I realize he is no longer drooling. My heart starts to pound and my hands start to shake as I take out my cell phone and call Liz. I have her on speed dial in case something ever happens while I am with Elliot. It goes straight to voice mail, and I leave a brief message._

"_Liz, it's AJ. I'm with your dad. I don't want to get your hopes up, but I think something is happening and you should get over here right away. I think . . . I think he's really listening to me."_

_I hang up and turn back to Elliot. "Elliot, do something, please? Show me you're in there. Stick out your tongue."_

_No response._

_I slide my hand into his and say, "Squeeze my hand."_

_Still nothing._

_But he __**is**__ watching me, and he __**is**__ frowning. He is __**not**__ drooling. He is __**there**__. I am sure of it._

_I open my portfolio again and begin to tell him about Kathleen._


	16. The Slacker

Lancaster – 16

**The Slacker  
Kathleen Meghan Stabler Connelly**

I was nineteen when I got pregnant for the first time, and Patrick was twenty-six. We weren't married yet, not even officially engaged because I was afraid to tell my parents I was dating someone so much older than myself. I know seven years isn't really such a big difference, but it is when you're only nineteen and your parents are my mom and dad.

I asked Mom if I could invite Patrick over on a night that Daddy would be there. My parents are weird. They hardly spoke to each other in the two years they were legally separated, but shortly after Daddy signed the divorce papers, we started having Sunday dinner as a family again. The meal was awkward and uncomfortable, and Daddy kept referring to me as his "little girl" to make a point about the age difference. It was his attempt at being subtle, I guess, because it beats saying, "I'm a sex crimes cop and if you had met my daughter three years ago, I would have found a way to put your ass in jail."

Anyway, when the meal was over, Patrick complimented my mom's cooking, shook my dad's hand, and left. Daddy thought he had scared him off, but Patrick and I actually planned it that way. I didn't want Patrick there when I gave them my news because I was afraid Daddy would try to hurt him. I was never afraid of my father, but he does have a violent temper and if anyone ever hurt me, well, I don't know what he would do. That's why, when I was seventeen and got stopped for DUI, I didn't tell the officers that my dad was a cop. I was afraid he would beat up the guys who had thrown the party.

Introducing my parents to Patrick was a whole lot easier than telling them they were about to become grandparents, but I was already more than four months along and wouldn't be able to hide it much longer. I was so nervous I could hardly talk, and when I finally got the words out, Mom just dissolved into tears. Daddy surprised me. He never yelled at me. He very calmly said, "I can't think of anything to say right now that won't hurt your feelings or start a fight, so I'm just going to step out of the room for a few minutes."

Then he went into the den. Mom had almost stopped crying when we heard a terrible crash. We ran into the other room, and found he had thrown his desk chair through the window. He was silhouetted in the moonlight with his face turned upward, and I could see his shoulders heaving up and down. I thought he was taking deep breaths to try to control his temper, but when he finally turned toward me I could see that he had been crying. His face was wet, and his eyes and nose were red. When he spoke, I knew he must have been praying, too, because there's no way other than Divine guidance that my dad, of all people, would have known what to say to me right then.

"You know your mother and I are disappointed," he said, "and there's no getting around that. You can't make us feel better about this, and you can't make us happy about it right now, so we just have to accept it and move on."

* * *

Lancaster – 17 

He was so kind and gentle as he spoke, and that surprised me even more than what he said. Usually he was so critical of me and my choices, but not this time. I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for him to explode, and it never happened.

"You don't have to marry this guy," he told me, and before I could tell him that I wanted to marry Patrick, he went into this whole speech and told me everything I needed to hear from him. For the first time in a really long time I knew without a doubt that my dad loved me, no matter what.

"If you want to keep the baby, your mother and I will help you," he said. "If you have to sue him for child support, we'll hire a lawyer, and we'll push for a custody arrangement, too, because he's damned sure going to take more than just financial responsibility for his child. If he forced you and you want to press charges, I will do everything in my power to put him in jail and terminate his parental rights. If you want to put the baby up for adoption, we'll support you in that, but we would like you to consider an open adoption so that maybe your mother and I can know our grandchild someday. You know we believe abortion would be the wrong thing to do. It's a mortal sin, and we would be very upset about that; but it's between you and God and we wouldn't stop loving you because of it."

I started to cry. I couldn't help myself. It was such a relief to hear all of that from him, especially when I thought he was going to go ballistic. He put his arms around me and kissed my forehead like he used to do when I was little and told me it would be all right.

It took a few minutes before I could find my voice and ask, "But what if I _want_ to marry Patrick?"

I felt Daddy stiffen and he said, "Now is not a good time to ask that question."

He pulled away from me and tipped my chin up so I had to look him in the eye. "We'll talk about that in a week or two – after I've had time to decide whether it's worth losing my job and my pension to beat the living hell out of him."

Well, what could I say to that? He'd been more calm and reasonable than I'd ever expected. He was only _talking_ about what I had been so afraid he would _do_. I just nodded and agreed to wait until he was ready to talk about the possibility of me marrying Patrick. He spent the night on the couch in the den and then took Monday morning off work to fix the window. I don't know why he didn't just let Mom call a handyman. Maybe he thought if he stayed around the house more he would keep Dickie and Liz from getting into the same trouble I had, but it really wasn't necessary because at the time, Liz was thinking about becoming a nun and Dickie still thought girls were gross.

A couple of weeks later, after Daddy had decided that it wasn't worth losing his pension to beat Patrick up, he and Mom took us out to lunch and we had a long talk. They told us how they had gotten married sooner than they had planned because Mom got pregnant

* * *

Lancaster – 18 

with Maureen. They acted like it was this big, shameful revelation, as if my sisters, brother, and I couldn't do the math and didn't realize it was only five months between their anniversary and Maureen's birthday. I guess they thought we were stupuid.

They told me how Daddy had planned to go to college after high school, get a degree in administration of justice, and join the NYPD; but with a wife and baby to support and no help from either of their parents, he'd had to join the Marines instead and used his GI Bill for his education when he finished his military service. Mom wanted to be a teacher, but Daddy's pay didn't come close to covering tuition and babysitting, so she'd given up on her education altogether. They weren't happy when I pointed out that Patrick already had a good job with an architecture firm and I wasn't interested in going to college.

That's when Daddy decided to pay the bill and take the discussion to a more private place. He was driving and he made me sit up front with him while Mom rode in the back with Patrick. All the way home in the car, he kept insisting that I was going to college, and I kept telling him he couldn't make me.

I needed an education so I could earn a living, he said. I told him I wanted to be a full-time wife and mother like my mom. What if Patrick died suddenly? That's why he had life insurance. What if we couldn't make it work and got a divorce? We planned to have a prenuptial agreement guaranteeing me a certain amount each month to support the kids and me, until I remarried, and then he would continue paying child support. Kids? I was already planning on having more? Well, we're Catholic. It's bound to happen. What if he lost his job or became disabled? He had insurance for that, too, and enough investments for us to live on. It would be tight, but we could do it, and his dad owned a number of apartment buildings. He could offer us a place to live rent-free if we needed it. What if he just got bored with me because I was an uneducated person and didn't have much to talk about that was of interest to him?

"Is that why Mom left you?" I asked. Even before the words were out of my mouth, I felt ashamed. I knew it was hurtful, but I had said it before I could stop myself.

"Daddy, I'm sorry," I apologized right away.

He looked all sad and embarrassed and shook his head. "No, you have a point. We never really told you kids what was going on. Your mom left me because I wasn't doing my part. That could happen to you, too."

"_Anything could_ happen!" I yelled, finally losing patience. "A comet could hit the earth in the next sixty seconds, and that would be the end of this argument."

"That would be the end of everything," he said, giving me a frown.

* * *

Lancaster – 19 

"Yeah, so why waste our time arguing about what _could_ happen? I'm having a baby with the man that I love and we're going to get married. Why can't we celebrate that?"

"Because I don't want my daughter stuck in a bad marriage when she finds out that the man she loves isn't the man she thinks he is, and before you ask, no, that's not what happened to your mother and me."

"I wasn't going to ask that," I told him. "I know you and Mom were really happy for a long time."

He glanced over at me again, and the look on his face made me want to cry. "Well, it's a valid question anyway."

"But if it didn't happen to you and mom, what makes you so sure it's going to happen to me?"

"Kathleen, I'm your father, it's my job to worry about all the bad things that can happen," he said. "Besides, your mom and I grew up together. We already knew each other as well as two people can. Are you sure this feeling that you think is love isn't really just a crush on an older guy who's around when I'm not?"

"Daddy, that's disgusting!" He gave me a look and I said, "My God, if he's just a substitute for you that would be like _incest_."

We were sitting at a red light, so he had a moment to look directly at me. The pain I saw in his eyes made my chest tight. "I didn't mean it that way, Kat, but it's my job to keep you safe. It's my job to make sure you know you're loved and that you'll always have someone to look out for you. I haven't been around to do that like I should, and he has. Maybe I'm a little jealous. It's a father's prerogative to disapprove of his daughter's boyfriend, even before he gets her pregnant."

A car beeped behind us, so we had to move, but I touched his arm and he took one hand off the wheel so I could hold it.

"Daddy, I know you love me, and no one could ever take your place," I told him, "but Patrick didn't get me pregnant without a little help, you know. I wouldn't have let it happen if I didn't really love him and if I wasn't sure he loved me. When I close my eyes, I can see myself having breakfast with Patrick. There's a toddler on his lap and a baby in a high chair beside me. There's golden sunlight streaming in through our kitchen window, and I just know it's right."

By this time we had come to the next light and I was tearing up. He looked over at me and I could see that his eyes were moist, too.

* * *

Lancaster – 20 

"That's a beautiful fantasy, Sweetie," he told me, "but if you're going to marry this guy, I want you to go into it with your eye wide open."

I don't know if my parents' plan was to divide and conquer or what, but it worked incredibly well. While Daddy and I argued loudly in the front seat, because that was the way we both communicated when we were upset, Mom and Patrick quietly reached an agreement in the back.

Patrick and I were to quit dating for a year. He could come to my prenatal appointments with me, be there when the baby was born, and visit the house any time; but we weren't going to date. I had to take some college courses just to see how I liked it, and Patrick was going to pay half of the tuition because if we did get married and I did decide to continue my education, he would have to help with the expenses anyway. If we still wanted to get married in a year, my parents would support our decision, and if not, well, I think that would have made my dad even happier.

I thought Patrick had agreed to the arrangement just to keep the peace, so I did too. I thought we would just fool around behind my parents' backs like we had done before, but he wouldn't hear of it. He really intended to hold up his end of the bargain. He wanted to earn my dad's respect and wanted my parents to trust him to take good care of me, and he thought respecting their wishes and waiting to marry me would be a good way to start.

"But I love you," I pouted as we sat together on the front porch of my mom's house.

"I know you do, and I love you, too," he said, "but your mom has a point. What happens five years from now if you decide you want to be more than a wife and a mother but don't have the education for it?"

"What more could I possibly want?"

"Well, you're very artistic," he reminded me, "you could be a painter or a photographer or an interior designer. You could be a landscape architect or a wedding planner. There are all kinds of things you could do. Are you really going to want all the responsibilities of a home and family when you're trying to launch a career?"

I put my hand over my belly then and said, "Well, it's a little late for that, isn't it?"

"No, no it's not," he insisted. "Your parents will help you with the baby, and I'll pay child support and help take care of it, if that's what you want. You're smart and talented and have so many people who love you and are willing to help you. You don't have to marry me to have a good life, and if, at the end of a year you still want to marry me, I'll feel doubly blessed."

I started to cry then. "It sounds like you're trying to get out of it!"

* * *

Lancaster – 21 

I tried to run away from him then, like the child I still was, but he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my hair and shushed me. "No, no, no, no, Sweetie, not at all. I just want you to see how much potential you have, so, if you decide to marry me and help me raise my children, we'll both know you're doing it by choice and not because you feel you have no other options. Your parents are right. You can do anything you want to do. I want to know that you _want_ to be with me. You just have to trust me to stick around for a year."

It wasn't easy at first. I've never been patient, and a year seemed like forever. I also had real issues with trust because my previous boyfriend had been a cheating, lying slimeball who had given me crabs, and then dropped me like a sack of stones. But Patrick encouraged me every day, and to my surprise, I liked having the opportunity to explore some other possibilities.

I started out taking a couple of photography classes at Queensborough Community College and wound up getting my A.A.S. in Digital Art and Design. It took me three and a half years to complete a two-year degree, but considering the fact that I'd also had three babies, gotten married, bought a house with my husband, and was subpoenaed by a judge to testify against my mother in court while my father was in a coma most of that time, I don't think I did too bad. Of course I haven't done much since then, except take some really awesome pictures of my husband and kids, but maybe after these twins start preschool I will open a studio or start doing wedding photography.

That's what my dad and I were arguing about the day he got shot. He said I was wasting my life and that I should aspire to be more than just a housewife. He said he and my mom never realized their full potential because they got pregnant and started a family too soon. I told him it was nice to know that he thought raising Maureen, Elizabeth, Dickie, and me was a waste and hung up on him. We never had a chance to make up.

If he ever comes to, I don't know what I'm going to do if he still feels that way about all these grandchildren I've given him. I just want him to be proud of me, but it seems like I'm always screwing up.


	17. Emotion

_As I finish reading, I cast a glance in Elliot's direction. He's still watching me, and now he has a deep frown on his face. He looks to be on the verge of tears. I can feel the emotion rising in my chest, the lump growing in my throat, and I wonder frantically where Elizabeth is._

"_Elliot?" I ask tentatively as I take his hand yet again. "What's the matter?"_

_I feel his grip on my hand tighten and he looks at me almost desperately. I am certain he is trying to communicate. I fumble for the call button to contact a nurse, but I can't bear to look away from him long enough to find it._

"_Say something," I plead. "What's wrong?"_

"_What's going on in here?" a nurse asks as she enters before I can find the button to summon her. "Allison says his brainwaves . . ."_

"_Kaaaaaaa . . ." Elliot gasps and he starts writhing agitatedly in the bed as he tries to use his grip on my hand to pull himself into a sitting position. "Kaaaaaaa!"_

_I push the button to raise his head and tell the nurse, "Call Eliz . . ."_

"_I'll call Elizabeth," she says anticipating my command, "and his doctor."_

"_And his wife, son, and other daughters!" I tell her. "And his boss and his partner and anyone else who has left a contact number!"_

_In his sudden struggles, he has discovered the splints, catheter, and feeding tube; and he tries clumsily to remove them. As much as I hate to do it, I have to restrain him. It's heartbreaking how easy it is for me to hold him down. I remember when he saved me how strong and solid he was, like a wall. _

_I try to quiet him as I gently grip his wrists to keep him from removing the various tubes, wires, and other devices attached to his body. Taking the splints off would be no big deal, and the feeding tube would only be messy; but if he were to succeed in pulling out the catheter, he would probably require surgery to repair the damage, and I have the horrible feeling that to put him under for surgery just as he is emerging from his coma would probably be disastrous._

"_Kaaaaaaa!" he says again, and I don't know whether the anguish I hear is in his voice or just in my imagination._

_Because I have been reading to him about his second daughter, Kathleen, I assume he is trying to call out for her. Whether I'm right or not, I suppose he would still like to hear reassuring words about her._

"_Kathleen is amazing," I tell him. "She's fantastic. She's beautiful, and she's really, really happy," I rattle on. "She's still crazy in love with her husband, and they have __**five**__ kids, and __**twins**__ on the way. It'll be their second set. Can you believe it?"_

_He seems to be responding to my voice. I don't know if he understands what I am saying, but he has quieted down some._

"_Kaaaaaaa?" Maybe I'm imagining the change in intonation, but I think he's trying to converse. It really sounds like a question._

"_You should see your grandkids, Elliot," I say enthusiastically. "They're as beautiful as their mom. They're just perfect. You would be so proud of them, so proud of how Kathleen has raised them, and you can tell her so yourself, just as soon as you get a little better."_

_He looks sad and thoughtful, and I wonder how much of my essay about Kathleen he understood._

"_Hey, she knows you love her," I assure him. "She's never doubted that, and you can tell her again soon, I promise."_

_The doctor comes in then, and I step away from the bed. Elliot's eyes follow me, and I mention it to the doctor, who nods and begins his assessment. He is using a new coma scale that I have not seen before, and some of the tests, such as pulling on Elliot's ears and swinging his hand as if he is about to slap Elliot in the face are new to me. I don't feel it is my place to question him about it, but I will make sure Liz knows. After a few minutes, he moves to the foot of the bed to speak with me. Liz has placed my name on the list of friends and family to whom the medical personnel may release information about his condition._

"_The Glasgow Scale isn't really appropriate for assessing Elliot's condition anymore," he begins. "I am sure you have noticed a lot of behaviors that it doesn't measure. By the Glasgow Scale, he would still be in what is considered a moderate coma, but just by watching him, you can tell that's not right."_

_I nod. "He's been visually tracking my movements for most of the afternoon, but the GSC doesn't account for that; and just because he hasn't made a sound until today doesn't mean he can't comprehend what is happening around him. He just can't express himself. So, how did you assess him?"_

"_I'm using the Rappaport Coma/Near Coma Scale. The GSC is mostly for ER assessment, but this scale is more comprehensive. It ranges from zero to four and the lower the score, the better. Elliot's at about a one, which places him in a near coma."_

"_What does that translate to on the Rancho Scale?" I ask._

_He looks at me quizzically and I just say, "I made it a point to educate myself."_

_He nods approvingly and says, "He's somewhere between level four and level five. He's not agitated, which is part of level four . . ."_

"_But he didn't respond to any of your commands, which is a criteria for level five," I finish._

_Now the doctor looks seriously impressed, and I can't imagine why. The Rancho Scale has eight levels and their names are pretty obvious about the expected behaviors. Level four is Confused-Agitated, level five is Confused-Inappropriate-Not Agitated, and level six is Confused-Appropriate. Levels seven and eight are patients who can manage self-care with supervision. I find it rather depressing that there is no level for people who are fully functional and on their own again._

"_How can I help him?" I ask._

_The doctor shrugs. "Keep doing what you're doing for now," he says, and I panic. I only have two sections of my project left that are ready to read. "Talk to him, touch him, stimulate him all the time. Try periodically to get him to respond to simple commands like squeezing your hand or wiggling a finger."_

_Maybe I can go back and reread the earlier sections about Captain Cragen and Detectives Munch and Tutuola. He would probably get a laugh out of the "candy-ass white boy" line. I am sure he would be touched to know how much his colleagues lov and respect him._

"_What about his family and friends?" I ask of the nurse who has just entered the room. "Have you contacted them?"_

"_Were only authorized to contact Elizabeth Stabler, her mother and siblings," she says. "Liz is about an hour away. I couldn't reach any of the others, but I did leave messages."_

_For some reason this news terrifies me, but I try not to show the nurse how upset I am. After all, it isn't her fault._

"_So, all I can do I keep reading and talking to him, huh?"_

_The doctor nods. "And touch him, yes. We'll be coming in every fifteen minutes or so to reassess him."_

_I shrug. "Ok. I'll do what I can."_

_They leave the room and I pray for Liz to hurry. This is like watching a baseball game when your team is down by three in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, two outs, and a pinch hitter batting for the pitcher. He's as likely to strike out as he is to hit a homerun and all you can do is hold your breath and wait._


	18. Stimulation

"_I made it a point to educate myself." That's what I'd told the doctor. "I'll do my best." I said that too, but now that I'm alone with Elliot, I feel like some kind of moron. I really don't know what to do._

_I take his hand in mine and ask, "Can you squeeze my hand, Elliot. Please?"_

_His eyebrows draw together as if he is trying to understand what I am saying, but he doesn't respond._

"_It's ok. You don't have to right now, but it would be nice. Are you sure you don't want to squeeze my hand?" I squeeze his as I ask, hoping to motivate him by example._

_He just continues to glower at me._

"_Maybe you're still a little confused about who I am," I say. "My name is AJ. Five years ago, you saved my little brother Ray Ray and me from a pedophile named Henry Micah Briggs. That's how . . ." _

_My voice breaks, and his eyebrows shoot up. I clear my throat and continue. "That's how you got hurt. He shot you. You found Ray Ray and me so quick he didn't have time to harm us, though. We were just scared. You did a good thing."_

_I spend the next few minutes telling him what the police discovered at Briggs's house and what Ray Ray and I have been doing since he rescued us. As I talk, his eyes keep drifting closed, and I do everything I can think of to keep him awake. I squeeze his hand, pinch him, and slap his face lightly every time his eyes drift closed. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest that it's hard to breathe. What will I tell Elizabeth if I can't keep him awake until she gets here?_

"_Hey, I talked to your wife the other day," I tell him, realizing that most of his progress has happened as I have been reading to him about the people who love him. His eyebrows quirk upward and I continue, "Yeah, that's right, I know she's still your __**wife.**__ I know you guys are still married. Do you want to know what she has to say?"_

_He stares at me earnestly, and after a moment I open my portfolio._

"_Ok," I agree, "but you __**have**__ to stay awake."_


	19. The Wife

Lancaster – 22

**The Wife  
Katherine Anne O'Hara Stabler**

Don't you dare suggest that I didn't love my husband. I loved him more than breathing, and we were really good together for a long time. Then, about seventeen years into our marriage, things started getting . . . difficult.

He wouldn't talk to me anymore and he spent most of his time sulking and stewing about things that happened at work. He was unhappy, and I couldn't help him. That made me unhappy and he felt guilty about that. Pretty soon, we both felt miserable and resented each other, and that was no good for the kids. So, I left.

I waited more than a year for him to sign the divorce papers. I just kept hoping he'd tell me he wanted to try again. Then the kids started asking me questions and I didn't know what to tell them. When I confronted him, he just shrugged and told me he didn't know why he hadn't signed the papers.

It took him so long to come up with that lousy answer that it pissed me off. If he'd said he still loved me or that he was afraid to let me go, hell, if he'd just said that divorce is a sin, I'd have tried again. And again. And again, as many times as it took to make things work because he was the only man I could ever love, but he just said he didn't know. I could tell he wanted to say more, but he wouldn't. I don't know if it was pride or embarrassment or the memory of his father always telling him that he was no damned good, but all he said was he didn't know.

That's when I figured it was really over. I took the humiliating step of asking his partner to get him to sign the papers. Not long after that, he brought them to me. Actually, he stuck them in the mailbox and rang the bell. I don't know why he didn't drive away before I came outside, but it was a painful moment, seeing him there and knowing what was in that envelope he left for me. A few weeks later, a suspect her was chasing died while resisting arrest. The night he was cleared of any wrongdoing, he showed up at the house asking to come home.

What could I say? I'd never find a better man or a more loving father for my kids, and I still loved him like crazy. I hadn't even filed the divorce papers with the court yet, because as soon as I had them, I was no longer sure I wanted them. I told him things couldn't go back to the way they were before I left and he agreed. He even said he'd been in counseling for over a year to help him deal with his anger issues. We went back into marriage counseling with our priest, and though we hadn't told the kids anything, we were just making plans for him to come home when he was shot.

My only intention when I asked the doctors to cut off his life support was to ease everyone's suffering. He wasn't like he is now. He'd developed an infection around the feeding tube in his stomach and the fever caused him to have seizures. He'd thrown up

* * *

Lancaster – 23 

and aspirated, which gave him pneumonia, and he had big, weeping sores on his elbows, heels, buttocks, back, and the back of his head because the nurses had forgotten to turn him. He wasn't at The Brain Injury Center then and the hospital was understaffed so things like that got missed sometimes. They weren't exactly being neglectful. A coma patient requires a surprising amount of attention, and it doesn't take more than a few hours to develop serious pressure sores. It literally happened overnight.

He was so sick, and he stank of decomposition. The doctors told me he was brain dead and that if he felt anything at all, it was pain. They said there was nothing they could do for him. I didn't want him to die; I just didn't want him to hurt anymore.

I had to think of my children, too. The twins were still in school, Kathleen was pregnant with her third child by then, and Maureen was finishing her master's degree. The situation wasn't healthy for them. They needed closure. They needed to move on, and it was the only way I could see for that to happen.

I had talked to some of the people Elliot worked with to get a better idea of what he might want, and every one of them said without being asked that he would die for his children. The red-headed DA, well, she was blonde by then, but her name's Casey Novak-Something-or-other, told me he'd said so in so many words one day when she went to him for advice on a case while he was at the park playing basketball with the twins. I guess I convinced myself that that's what he'd be doing, dying for his children, so they could move on with their lives.

I feel horrible that Liz had to take me to court to stop it, and even worse that I got a lawyer and fought her on it, but my God, I'm glad she won. It was just such a bad time for all of us and I was only doing what I thought was best. You have to understand, the doctors were telling me he was already dead, that he could never get better. I guess I'm a bad mother and a worse wife, but the truth is, I was relieved to have someone else take over the responsibility. I can do little things for him like wash his back and comb his hair, but seeing how much he has improved since Liz took charge of his care, I just can't trust myself to make the right decisions for him.

I hope someday he comes back to us. I don't know how I'll explain what I tried to do if he does, but if he came back, if he got to see what wonderful people his kids have become, and if he got the chance to see his grandchildren, I wouldn't care if he hated me forever. I'll never be able to apologize enough, but I want my husband back.

The kids don't even know we're still married.


	20. Relapse

"_The kids don't even know we're still married," I finish, forcing the words around the tears that have clogged my throat._

_I have failed in the worst kind of way. Every other line I would look up at Elliot, and when his eyes were closed I would poke him or pinch him. I did everything I could, but less than halfway through the passage, he quit responding. Now there is a thin trickle of drool running down his face again._

_There is a commotion in the hall, and I am seized by panic. I squeeze his hand and beg him, "Elliot, __**please**__, wake up."_

"_I want to see him first," Elizabeth's voice insists from the hall._

_I pinch him and plead again. "Wake up, Elliot, __**please**__, wake up. Elizabeth is here to see you."_

"_Yes, yes, I understand, but I want to __**see **__him __**now**__."_

_I slap him, perhaps a little harder than I ought to. "Don't __**do**__ this to me, Elliot," I beseech him. "Don't do this to your __**family**__."_

"_Daddy?"_

_Now my tears spill and there is nothing I can do to stop them._

"_I'm sorry, Liz," I whisper. "He was there, almost back, and then he went away again. I'm so sorry. I . . . I was reading to him about your mom, and he just . . . I kept doing things to keep him awake, but he just . . . slipped away again. There was nothing I could do."_

_She frowns. "Maybe he's just sleeping," she wishes._

_I shake my head. "I don't think so. I'm sorry."_

_She brushes past me and sits on the edge of his bed. "Daddy, I'm here. I'm sorry you had to wait so long, but I was on my way to visit Dickie and his friends. They've rented shares in a beach house on Fire Island for the summer. It's a good deal, only a thousand bucks for four weekends."_

"_Daddy?" She places a hand on his chest and shakes him lightly. "Daddy? Please wake up."_

_He doesn't respond and I see her face contort in an effort not to cry. She grabs him by the lapels of his pajama top and shakes him more forcefully. _

"_Daddy, wake up!"_

_She watches him intently for a moment, and then I see the hope leave her eyes and her expression crumples when she realizes that she just missed him._

"_Oh, Daddy," she moans, and lays her head down on his chest and begins to sob._

_I don't know whether to stay or go, whether to comfort her or leave her alone. I stand there feeling lost and useless as she cries his shirt wet with her tears. It's several minutes before she calms down. At one point, the nurse peeks in, and I just shake my head. She understands that, no matter what she needs to do, it can wait, and she withdraws._

_Finally, Liz's tears subside to quiet sniffling, and I decide she needs some privacy. I didn't want to leave her earlier because I was afraid she was upset enough to do something foolish, but now I know she will be all right. I move over and place a hand on her back._

"_I'm going to go to the lounge," I tell her. "I'll be there for a while if you need me. I'll come back before I leave."_

_At first she doesn't respond. Wanting to comfort her, I kiss her hair softly before I step away. I hope she isn't angry with me. I pray she doesn't blame me, but if she wants to, I won't argue. I really did everything I could, but that doesn't matter when you're hurting as badly as she is. As I move away from her, she turns and catches me by the wrist._

"_Please, don't go. They said . . ." she gulps back her tears and continues, "they said you were reading to him when he woke up."_

_I nod. "About Kathleen." I don't mention to her that I was also reading to him when he slipped away again._

"_If you have anything else, I know he'd love to hear it."_

_I swallow hard, and my throat is so choked with emotion that it hurts. _

"_All I have left is the part about you," I say. "It's still a little rough."_

"_I don't mind," she says._

_I usually hate to let anyone read what I have written about them, but how can I deny her at a time like this? I nod, open my portfolio one more time, and begin reading._


	21. The Daddy's Girl

Lancaster – 24

**The Daddy's Girl  
Elizabeth Ann Stabler**

I know my dad is going to wake up some day, and he is going to be all right. Technically, I guess I should say I believe it, but it's such a deeply held belief that I might as well say I know it. I can't explain why my faith is so strong, and I can't describe the certainty I feel; but if I could, no one would doubt it. It is as sure and as strong inside me as my own heartbeat.

That's why I asked the courts for a restraining order when my mom wanted to cut off his life support. I don't blame her, and I can't forgive her because as far as I am concerned, there is nothing to forgive. He was so sick, and the doctors were telling her that all he could feel was pain. I know she was just doing what she thought was best for him, for all of us. I also know she was wrong, and I couldn't let her kill him.

Casey Novak, well, Casey Novak-Fitzgerald, now, recommended a lawyer for me. Barry Moredock took my case for free, which I think is hilarious and ironic considering how many times he's done the same for people my dad and Olivia arrested. He's a good man, and a good lawyer. I would have known that even if Casey hadn't told me, and not just because he won. He really listened to me, he counseled me, he comforted me, and he respected my wishes in court and never attacked my mother's character or questioned her motives. He didn't drag my sisters and brother into it, either, and he tried to convince the judge not to subpoena them. He understood that, as much as I wanted to win, I knew my father wouldn't want me to hurt my family in the process.

When he found out that Mom had never filed the divorce papers that Daddy had signed, I thought it was over. My whole case rested on the argument that she was no longer his next of kin and therefore had no legal standing to decide his fate. I don't know why her lawyer never mentioned it in court, but she didn't. She just kept arguing that I was too young to make responsible, educated decisions;

The first thing I did was move Daddy out of that awful hospital and into The Brain Injury Center. I knew they would take better care of him. At the hospital, their goal was to keep him comfortable until he died, and while they did their best to kill him, they never did make him very comfortable. At TBIC the ultimate goal is to help him recover. They do a good job, but they have so many patients that they can't do everything for any of them. That's why I put off going to college, so I can be here to pick up the slack.

I never told Mom or anyone else what I know about the divorce papers. I suppose she has her reasons for keeping it a secret. Mr. Moredock never actually said they were divorced in court, so the judge can't charge anyone with perjury; but if he ever finds out that they are still legally married, I could lose my rights as Daddy's medical guardian. Then there's no telling what would happen, because there's no guarantee that the courts would give them back to Mom.

* * *

Lancaster – 25 

The past five years have been really difficult. I miss my dad. He wasn't there when I made the varsity girls' basketball team as a freshman, when I started every game of my sophomore year, when I messed up my knee as a junior, or when I came back to make the All-City team as a senior. He's missed piano recitals, school plays, my junior _and_ senior proms, seeing me get crowned homecoming queen, and my high school graduation. I was in the top ten and got to wear an honor cord. He's never even met one of my boyfriends, not that there's been a steady parade of guys or anything. I'm not sure I'll ever get married unless he is there to give me away.

When I was little, he used to let me paint his finger- and toenails. Once, when I was home sick from school and he happened to have the day off, he even let me put makeup on his face. When his partner at the time, a giant Italian man named Alphonse Bennetto, stopped by, he even answered the door without washing it off. He probably looked like a clown with all the lipstick and rouge I had on him, but he didn't care. He's such a strong man, so macho, but he was a terrific playmate.

He used to read to me when I was little, all kinds of things. My favorites were _'Twas the Night Before Christmas_ because he sounded just like Santa when he read the reindeer's names, and _Olivia, _the book about the pig, even though I was a little too old for it, because he seemed to enjoy it so much. We had tea parties and played hide and seek and even dress up. I have this one picture of him, it's just too funny. He's got on jeans and a sweatshirt with lipstick, a feathered pink boa, costume earrings, and a tiara.

He wasn't home much because of his work, but when I was little, he used to cram _so much_ into the time he had with us that I think he welcomed the chance to go back to work so that he could get some rest. Then things started to change. He didn't talk or joke as much, and he didn't seem very happy. I knew he and mom weren't getting along, but I was still surprised when she left and very hurt that he would let her take us away from him. I hope some day he can explain what happened to me.

When I was little, my brother and I shared a bedroom. We used to sleep with the door open because he was afraid of the dark. In the mornings, I could lie in bed and watch Daddy shave. Once, he caught me watching him, and he came over when he was done and kissed me good morning. It became our little ritual, that secret moment when no one else was awake. Daddy never said anything. He just gave me a kiss on the forehead and smiled at me before he went downstairs for breakfast. Dickie was always sleeping like a log and never knew he was there.

Now, I choke whenever I smell his aftershave because I just miss him so much.


	22. Mistake

_As I finish, I realize that the page is wet and I have been crying. I would die right now to give Elizabeth back her father. I think I would even go back and let Henry Micah Briggs have me if that's what it took. My dad isn't there for me, either, but he died so long ago that I have learned to manage without him. She had to figure out how to get by without Elliot just as she was starting high school. I also think it was worse for her because he wasn't dead. She could still see him, touch him, and talk to him, but he couldn't give her anything back._

_I would do anything to give her back her father._

_Elizabeth is sitting in the chair beside his bed, bent forward with her upper body sprawled across his chest. Her eyes are closed and there is a slight smile on her face. I think she might have fallen asleep listening to the sound of his heartbeat and taking comfort in the fact that it is still strong and steady. _

_My chest is tight and it's hard to breathe. I want to fix this but I can't. I have no idea what to do. I look back into my portfolio and wonder if I should read some more. Would he rather hear about his captain or his colleagues again, or would he want me to repeat what I have read about his family. Should I read those passages in front of Liz? They confided some very personal things and to do so might be seen as a betrayal._

_I am beginning to think that this project has been a colossal mistake. If I hadn't decided to write about him and read my essays to him, Elliot could have continued in blissful ignorance of the world around him. If I hadn't tried to get Candace to understand what an impact he has had on my life, he would have been spared the humiliation she heaped upon him. If I had just stayed the hell away, I wouldn't be here now watching poor Elizabeth deal with the agony of having her father come back only long enough for the staff to call her but not long enough to actually see his soul still present in his clear, blue eyes._

_I shake my head and stifle a sob, hating myself for what I have done to Elliot and his family. I don't even know if I should stay or go. As I am struggling to decide what to do, I hear Elizabeth begin to stir. I look in her direction hoping she can give me some idea, and I discover I am mistaken._

_Elliot's hand has moved to rest softly on her hair. He opens his eyes, smiles sweetly, and whispers, "Lizbeh."_


	23. Confusion

_Her face still wet with tears, Elizabeth turns her head and smiles at her dad. At first, Elliot's perplexed expression is almost comical, but when I realize the source of his confusion, my heart breaks for both of them all over again. Liz, on the other hand, has been anticipating this moment for five years, planning for it, even, and she is unfazed._

"_I know I look different, Daddy," she says comfortingly, "but it's really me. I've just grown up."_

_His face puckers into a very expressive frown, and he pulls away from her a little. I stay where I am so as not to intrude and watch the exchange in fascination. Liz has apparently realized that he will need some convincing, and does not seem to feel hurt by his doubts about her. Instead, she just smiles sweetly, backs away from the bed and moves round to the night stand on the other side of the room where she has placed several family photographs over the years._

_Elliot follows her every move with his eyes and turns in bed when he can no longer crane his neck far enough to look at her. There is no telling how much brain damage he might have suffered, and the fact that he has only said one comprehensible word so far is rather worrying; but there is no doubt now that he is fully conscious. He is alert, attentive, and his actions are purposeful; and that makes my heart soar._

"_Look at this, Daddy," Elizabeth says as she takes a few framed photos off the stand. "We've taken our family portrait by the Christmas tree every year. You can see how we have all changed. Mom let me get contacts when I was seventeen so I didn't have to mess with prescription sunglasses when I started driving."_

_He rather clumsily places a hand on one of the pictures and looks dubiously from the photo to Liz and back again._

"_It's me," she says encouragingly. "Honest. Remember when Dickie shoved me down on the playground after I beat him three times in a row at half-court basketball?"_

_She waits a moment, as if giving her father time to answer. Even though he doesn't speak, she eventually continues just as if he had said something. _

"_Well, I still have the scar on my chin, see?"_

_She tilts her head back and points to a small, white line running across the underside of her chin. I am surprised that I have never noticed it before. Elliot stares at the mark for a long moment and then reaches up and touches it. Elizabeth smiles._

"_I remember being grounded until it healed," a voice says from the doorway, "and nobody cared that you cheated."_

"_Did not!"_

"_Did too!"_

_Elliot looks at the pictures and frowns. Then he turns to the person in the door and says, "Di . . . keeee?"_

_Rick Stabler smiles and his eyes are bright with tears as he crosses the room and wraps Elliot in a huge hug. "Hi, Dad, I missed you."_

"_You got here fast," Elizabeth says with the tiniest bit of reproach in her voice._

_Rick grins and says, "Don't be a tattle tale."_

_Within ten minutes, the room is full with the rest of the Stabler clan, minus Kathleen's children. I have become invisible, and I begin to feel very uncomfortable imposing my presence on these intimate moments. I tear a blank page out of my portfolio, and write a note for Liz on it. I give it to her brother-in-law, Patrick Connelly, Kathleen's husband, and quietly leave the room. I stop in the hall and turn around to look at the happy group. Elliot has his hands on Kathleen's swollen belly, and he looks absolutely thrilled._

_I begin dialing my cell phone as I walk out of The Brain Injury Center, and by the time I have started my car, I have three appointments for interviews tomorrow. I have only one thing left to do before I go home for the evening and share the good news with Consuelo and Ray Ray. Uncle Jason couldn't give a shit._

_I drive back from Staten Island with mixed emotions of delight and dismay. On the one hand I am delighted that Elliot has finally come back; and on the other hand I am worried that it might not last, that he might not improve beyond this point, or that his family will ask me to stop visiting now that he has revived. I guess I am a bit of a pessimist, but if someone I loved were in a similar condition, I would not want him receiving visits from the person responsible._

_I keep my car in a parking structure a couple of blocks from home. My space is between Uncle Jason's Audi and Consuelo's minivan. He paid an obscene amount of money to get someone to swap spaces with him so that all three cars could be together. I find it ironic that he wants our vehicles to be a happy family when I haven't seen him in days. It's just another example of my uncle's screwed up priorities._

_Since it is such a beautiful evening, I decide to walk to my next destination. The sky is impossibly clear and it is quite warm, which is not uncommon for late June. What is remarkable is the lack of humidity. If I remember my elementary science classes correctly, that means there is an area of high pressure over the region that is drying the air out. The strangest thoughts come into my head when I am alone._

_I've been doing a lot of thinking on my way back from Staten Island, so when I arrive at the door, I know just what I am going to say. I know I will not be well-received as a guest this evening, but if I can just get in the door, everything should be all right. I take a deep breath and lift the heavy brass knocker. I rap three times, hard, and wait._

_It takes just a few moments for Reginald to open the door. From what I can gather, his only duty in the Billingsley household is to announce guests or turn them away. There are two housekeepers who come in the afternoon to dust, mop, vacuum, wash windows, water houseplants, do laundry, and clean the cat's litter box. An upstairs maid makes the beds, puts away the laundry, lays out clothing for the day, polishes shoes, and keeps fresh flowers in all of the rooms. A downstairs maid gathers up the daily clutter that people tend to leave behind them as they go through the day, a newspaper here or an empty soda can there that should be recycled. She also feeds and plays with the cat and arranges flowers for the downstairs rooms. A kitchen maid sets and clears the table, washes the dishes, and serves meals, tea, and snacks prepared by the cook. A house manager named Isabella plans the daily household schedule, does the grocery shopping, helps Mrs. Billingsley organize special events like birthday and dinner parties, and assigns duties to the other staff members. Mr. Billingsley has a manservant named Dennis to assist him by managing his schedule, reading and prioritizing his correspondence, planning his itinerary and packing for business trips. There are also two full-time drivers on staff to share the duties of taking Candace to and from school, dance practice, and wherever else she needs to go; driving her mother to different board meetings and luncheons she attends; and chauffeuring Mr. Billingsley to and from his office and the airport._

_Although he has never treated me with anything less that perfect respect, Reginald always manages to look at me as if I am a newly discovered and particularly disgusting species of cockroach. Yes, even the very rich can be victims of discrimination, although I must admit, I could not care less what the butler thinks of me._

_You see, the Billingsley family is "old money" and can trace its fortune back through oil, coal, and lumber barons all the way to Revolutionary War profiteers. My family, on the other hand, is what Reginald would call "nouveaux riche" which in his view of the world is even worse than being "bourgeois" because at least the bourgeois know their place._

_My father and Uncle Jason made their fortunes in a small import-export business that my late grandfather Lancaster established back in the 1940's just after World War II. He made a decent, upper-middle class living importing cheap, low-quality goods from Japan and China, but it wasn't until the 1980's and Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of perestroika that the business began booming. Uncle Jason had the business acumen to recognize the enormous opportunities that would arise as the Soviet Union broke up and the newly-democratic countries emerged from behind the Iron Curtain to participate in the free market and global economy. My father had a genius for languages that enabled him to learn the native tongues and local dialects of half a dozen former soviet countries well enough to negotiate exclusive contracts with hundreds of small manufactures and producers of everything from table linens to wine, jewelry, machine parts, and caviar. Now, Lancaster & Sons Imports does hundreds of millions of dollars in business a year. I'm not sure how much of that is profit, but Uncle Jason just recently purchased a company yacht to entertain clients._

_I don't know how Uncle Jason has managed all this time without my dad. Hiring three interpreters to travel with him and three certified translators to review all business documents has certainly helped, but my dad did so much more, from checking the inventory to sending holiday greetings to suppliers in the former Soviet Union, to throwing barbecues for retailers here in the U.S. I guess Uncle Jason just sort of picked up the slack. A week after my parents' funeral, he made a three-week business trip to meet with all of the suppliers to assure them it would be business as usual. The company didn't lose a single client. That's one good thing I can say about Uncle Jason. He is a hard worker._

"_Miss Candace would prefer not to receive you this evening, Mr. Lancaster," Reginald tells me._

_I like to play into the crass, unmannered stereotype Reginald has of me, so I clap him heartily on the shoulder and say, "That's all right, Reggie, 'cause I'm here to see her father anyhow."_

_Reginald snorts in surprise, but recovers quickly._

"_I shall see if Mr. Billingsley has the time," he says quite primly and beats a hasty retreat. A few minutes later, he returns and says, "Mr. Billingsley will receive you in the library."_

_I follow him as he glides like a swan through the house. From the way he walks, I would swear the man was a beauty queen in a former life. He's not effeminate, just very poised, graceful, and elegant. I think he could have been a very successful competitive ballroom dancer. I follow him into the library and he announces me to Mr. Billingsley. "Young Mr. Lancaster, sir."_

_I can't help but continue my charade just for Reginald's mortification. As he turns to leave the room, I pull my hand out of my pocket and extend it to shake with him. While it is proper to politely thank the servants, one should never treat them as peers. Reginald looks at my hand as if it is covered in dog crap, but he cannot be rude and refuse to take it. He grips my hand delicately, tentatively, and I slip him the five I had secreted in my palm. _

"_Thanks so much, Reggie," I say, pumping his hand up and down. "I'll see you around."_

_His eyes bug out in surprise when he feels the bill slip into his palm. I give him a wink and a cavalier grin, and he pulls his hand away as if I have burned him. He leaves the room muttering about bell hops and concierges._

_I turn to Mr. Billingsley, who is seated in a comfortable-looking leather armchair, and ask, "Do you think five dollars was a large enough tip?"_

_He bursts out laughing, closes the book he has been reading, and says, "You __**do**__ delight in torturing the poor fellow, don't you?"_

_I shrug. "Actually, I think I am giving him exactly what he wants," I say, taking the seat he motions me into._

"_Which is what?" he asks curiously._

"_Conformation of my lack of proper manners and breeding," I reply. "Proof that I am beneath him and totally unsuitable for his employer's only daughter."_

"_Do you really think that?"_

"_I don't, but he does," I say. "Your butler is a snob, Mr. Billingsley, and since I am never going to change his opinion of me, I might as well have a little fun at his expense."_

_Mr. Billingsley chuckles and then becomes serious. "You didn't come here just to torture Reginald. You know, Candace is terribly upset with you."_

_I nod. "I'm not surprised, sir, I was pretty hard on her today."_

"_And I suppose you want me to compel her to see you."_

"_Yes, sir," I say and nod again._

"_Why would I do that?" he asks and seems genuinely interested in my reply._

"_Because I think I owe her an apology," I respond, "and I have good news for her, too."_

_He studies me thoughtfully and then rises from his chair. "I probably shouldn't get involved," he says, "but you have been good for my daughter. So I will do this for you just this once."_

"_Thank you, sir," I say gratefully._

"_Save it until after you've spoken with her," he says. "You might find you would rather I had turned you away."_

_I nod and wait quietly until he returns with Candace. The fact that my family is new to wealth doesn't seem to bother Mr. Billingsley nearly as much as it disturbs Reginald. I think he is just happy to know that I am not interested in his daughter just for her money._

"_But, Daddy, you don't know what he said to me," I hear Candace complaining. _

"_No, but I doubt it was untrue, and it didn't seem to have you terribly upset when you arrived home laughing and flirting with that young rouge, Kevin Crandol," I hear her father respond._

"_But, Daddy . . ."_

"_Candace, your mother and I ask so little of you, I am afraid I must insist."_

_I hear the door open, and Mr. Billingsley brings Candace into the library. He has a firm grip on her arm, and I have no doubt that she would storm away if he let her go. He leads her over to the chair facing mine and makes her sit._

"_AJ, would you like me to have Mitzi bring you a soda or some iced tea?"_

"_No, thank you, sir, I'm fine."_

"_Candace, darling, what about you?"_

"_No, Daddy, thank you," she says as she glares at me. "I won't be here that long."_

_Mr. Billingsley cocks an eyebrow at me, shrugs one shoulder in a "what's a father to do" gesture, and leaves us alone._

"_What do you want?"_

_I take a deep breath. This isn't going to be easy for either of us._

"_Elliot woke up after you left," I tell her._

_She looks a little surprised and smiles slightly. "That's good. So is he all right now?"_

_I shrug. "I don't know. I haven't heard what his doctor has to say yet. He was in a coma for five years, so I imagine he's going to need speech, physical, and occupational therapy at the very least."_

"_So you're still not off your guilt trip, are you?"_

"_It's not a guilt trip," I tell her. "It's my way of expressing gratitude for what he did for me."_

"_Call it what you like, Al," she says in frustration. "A normal person would have sent flowers and a card and moved on. You have been wallowing for the past five years."_

"_Whatever," I say, trying to avoid an argument. "Let's not talk about that."_

"_Then what do you want to talk about?"_

"_I want to apologize," I say. "You're right. I did expect too much of you."_

_She gets a self-satisfied little smirk and I continue. "You're spoiled, Candace. You've never had to face anything really terrible, and so you aren't equipped to deal with people who have. You're selfish, inconsiderate, thoughtless, self-centered, self-absorbed, insensitive, impatient, and sometimes unkind."_

_Her mouth drops open in shock and I am glad she's too surprised to speak because I need to continue now that I have started. "I'm not saying that to be mean. I know it's not your fault. It's the way you've been brought up. You've never been challenged or had to face adversity, and no one has ever told you that you can't have whatever you want."_

_I realize that what I have said so far seems like an attack against her and her parents, and I try to fix that. "Your parents love you, Candace, and they can afford to give you everything you want, so they do. I can't blame them for that, but it has made you a spoiled, selfish child."_

"_Well, you're gloomy, depressing, and frightfully dull," she replies, "and it has a lot to do with the way you were brought up, but I don't make you feel like a jerk because of it. Your Uncle Jason and Consuelo never should have let you visit that cop. You're obsessed with him, and it isn't healthy for you to keep blaming yourself for what happened to him."_

"_You don't understand," I tell her. "It didn't just 'happen' to him like some freak accident, Candace. It wasn't a lightning strike or a car running a red light. He saved me. He knew he was in danger. He knew he could get hurt or killed, but that didn't stop him. I should have died a horrible death because I was stupid and irresponsible and got myself and my little brother in trouble, but he saved me; he saved us, and he and his family have been paying for it ever since."_

"_Al, he saved you because it was his job," she says as if she is speaking slowly for a small child to understand. "It's what the city paid him for. You don't owe him a thing."_

"_God, sometimes you can be such a bitch," I tell her. "The city can't possibly pay him enough for all that he and his family have been through on my account. There just isn't that much money . . . anywhere. This is exactly what I mean when I say you are spoiled. You're so self-centered, you can't even imagine what it might be like for his children."_

_I stop myself. I don't want to go on a tirade._

"_I'm sorry. I didn't come here to attack you or argue with you. I know you have a good heart, Candace. I know you love your family and friends and that you can be kind and thoughtful when you think of it. I am sure that someday, if you want to, you can outgrow your childish qualities, but I don't have the patience to wait for you. I'm sorry."_

_I wait a long time for her reply, and it never comes. Finally, I stand up and move to the door. _

"_Al?" she calls, and I pause._

"_Yes?"_

"_I know you're right. You're a better person than I am, and I'm sorry I can't be who you want me to be," she says. "I just thought I might be able cheer you up a little because you always seem so sad."_

_I find I can't look back at her. I know I should have broken up with her long ago, and I feel bad for hurting her by letting it go on so long. "It's not your fault," I say, "and you can be anybody you want to be, if you're willing to work for it. I'm sorry I expected too much, too soon. I guess we were both wrong for trying to change each other. If you want, you can tell your friends that you dumped me. I won't say anything different."_

_She chuckles slightly and says, "Thank you. I already did."_

_I can't help smiling. I should have known. _

"_I'm glad he woke up," she says._

_I swallow hard and wish I didn't feel so much like crying. "Thanks," I say, and rush out of the house before Reginald can get the door for me._

_My cell phone rings as I walk home and from the caller ID I see that it's Elizabeth Stabler. I take a deep breath and hope I sound better than I feel when I answer. "Hey, Liz! How's your dad?"_

"_He's sleeping," she says in a choked little voice, "and that scares me."_

"_Why?" I ask, already knowing the answer but thinking it will help her to say it aloud._

"_Because I'm afraid he won't wake up again."_

"_Liz, if you keep worrying about what __**might**__ happen, you won't find any joy in what __**has**__ happened," I advise her as I dodge other pedestrians on the sidewalk. "Your dad woke up and recognized you. He remembers you, and your sisters, your brother, your mom. He knows he's going to be a grandpa again. Granted, he's got a ways to go, but Liz, you got him back."_

"_Yeah, but for how long, and will he ever really be himself again?"_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_After you left, the doctor came and talked to us," she said, and I immediately hear the worry in her voice. "He said Daddy could relapse at any time. He could drift in and out of consciousness for weeks before he either comes around for good or goes back into a coma. He'll probably never recover completely, and right now there's no way of telling how much he can improve. Oh, AJ, I have been waiting for this day for so long and now I don't know what to do!"_

_She ends on a sob, and I wish I could be there with her._

"_Where are you now, Liz?" I ask._

"_Crossing the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, why?"_

"_Because the next thing you're going to do is meet me for dinner," I say. "We can talk about it over a meal." As I head to the nearest subway stop, I give her directions to Jack's, a Brooklyn restaurant not too far out of her way and tell her to meet me there._

_Forty-five minutes later we are splitting a spinach pizza and talking about inconsequential things when Liz sighs and says, "AJ, what am I going to do if he . . . if I find out he's mad at me for not letting him go?"_

_Her voice chokes to a whimper at the end of the question and I reach out to cover her hand with mine when I really wish I could put my arms around her._

"_Now, why would he be mad at you?" I ask._

"_He was such a strong man, so tough, and . . . and he just hated being sick. How is he going to feel when he finds out I kept him alive just to be . . ."_

_She can't finish her thought, so I do it for her. "What? A cripple?" _

_She nods, and I continue talking. "Liz, I don't know your dad, but I know what people have told me about him, and I think he's going to bust his tail in rehab to get back as much as he can of what he has lost. He might never be the way he was before he got shot, but someday he will be strong and healthy again; and from everything you and the rest of your family have said, he's going to be thankful that he's still with you all. He's going to get to see his son graduate from college. He'll get to know his grandchildren. Someday, he'll even get to walk you down the aisle."_

"_If he can walk at all," she says dismally._

"_Elizabeth, listen to me," I say sternly, and I am a little surprised when she looks up to meet my gaze. "For the past five years, you have practically put your life on hold to get your dad to this point. Now that he's here, I think you're afraid that you won't be needed anymore."_

_Liz told me during our interview how, when she was still in high school, she would come to the hospital every day as soon as school let out and do her homework and studying at her dad's bedside. During basketball season, she would often be there until eleven o'clock at night, arriving after practice and staying until her schoolwork was finished and she had done his exercises with him. During the summer, she would spend twelve hours a day at The Brain Injury Center. She'd only started dating her junior year, and even then, as often as not, her 'dates' would always wind up visiting her dad. I can understand why she would feel at loose ends now._

"_I just don't know what to do, AJ. I never really thought about what comes next," she admits._

"_He's going to have doctors, nurses, and all kinds of therapists helping him get back into shape and learn to care for himself again," I tell her. "But he's still going to need you, too, just as much as he always did. You're his little girl. He's going to need you, your mom, and your siblings to remind him of all the good things he has, all the reasons he fought so hard to hang on and come back to you. He's going to need you to start living your life again so he can be a dad and hate your boyfriends and worry about your grades."_

_She laughs. "I've been out of school for a while now," she says._

"_I know, but maybe it's time for you to start college," I suggest. She gives me a doubtful look, but before she can say anything, I tell her, "It's just a thought."_

_She smiles and nods and then yawns enormously. I look around and see that the staff is cleaning up. I glance at my watch to find that it is almost twelve. The restaurant closes at half past eleven, but they have been kind enough to let us sit and talk a while longer._

"_It's late," I say, taking out my wallet and throwing a few bills on the table. I include a large tip to show my appreciation for them letting us stay past closing. Liz gets up and slips on her jacket. _

"_Let me drive you home," I offer._

"_I brought my car," she says._

"_I know. I can drive it," I insist._

"_Then how will you get home?"_

"_I guess I'll take the bus to Kew Gardens and then the subway home," I tell her._

_She looks doubtful, but shrugs. "All right, I guess."_

_She hands me her keys and I guide her out of the restaurant. Traffic is light and it doesn't take us long to get to Glen Oaks, but she has had an emotionally draining day. By the time we get to her house, I have to shake her gently to wake her up. She looks at me and smiles sleepily._

"_You can park anywhere on the street."_

"_I already have," I tell her, trying not to laugh. I guess she gets goofy when she's tired, and it's rather endearing._

"_Oh."_

_I get out and go around the car to open the door for her. She smiles up at me and swings her long legs out. "Such a gentleman."_

"_You can thank Consuelo for any manners I may have," I tell her as I walk her to the door._

_We part on the porch and she softly kisses me goodnight. I am halfway down the steps when she calls to me._

"_AJ?"_

_I turn and face her. She is beautiful in the moonlight and I feel my heart flutter._

"_It's um . . . it's late, why . . . why don't you stay here tonight?"_

_I hope it's dark enough that she can't see me blush. "Look, Liz . . ."_

"_In the guest room," she adds, and I breathe a sigh of relief._

"_To tell you the truth, I wasn't looking forward to riding all the way back to Manhattan at this hour," I say. "And I do need to get up early for an appointment. Are you sure your mother won't mind?"_

"_She's staying with my dad tonight," Liz tells me with a smile, "but considering the circumstances, I doubt it. Besides, Rick is staying here tonight, so we'll have a chaperone."_

_My face suddenly feels hot and I wonder if one really can die of embarrassment, but I nod and say, "Well, then, I guess I'll accept your offer, if you're sure."_

_She smiles and says. "I am."_

_It takes a few minutes of rooting in the linen closet, but Liz eventually finds a new toothbrush for me to use, and while I am cleaning my teeth for the night, she brings me a towel, washcloth, and pajamas. _

"_The pants and sleeves might be a little short for you, but you and my brother are about the same size around," she says. "Mom just did laundry, so I know these are clean."_

_I smile and thank her, and she says, "If you want to give me your jeans and shirt, I can freshen them up in the dryer for you for tomorrow."_

"_I'd appreciate that," I say, and when she stands there smiling at me, I add, "but I, uh, kind of need to change to do that, you know."_

_Now it is her turn to blush. "Oh! Right. I, um, I'll just wait out here in the hall."_

_I close the door and quickly slip out of my clothes and into the pajama pants. She's right about them being short, not that I care. I don't bother with the shirt because it is warm in the house. I empty my pants pockets and open the door to hand her my clothes._

"_I'll just, uh, take these down to the laundry room," she says and I notice that her gaze is on my chest instead of my face. Now I know how she must feel. "The guest room is the last door on the left. If you need anything, I'll be right across the hall."_

_I thank her and she leaves. I quickly brush my teeth and go down the hall and get into bed. I feel like a coward for avoiding her, but I don't want any more awkward moments this evening. Just before I nod off, I remember to call Consuelo. At first she gives me hell for not calling sooner, but once I tell her everything that has happened today, she just wishes me sweet dreams and says goodnight._

* * *

**Sorry for the long delay. Everything up to chapter twenty-two was already written when I began posting. The rest of this is a work-in-progress, so I won't be able to post a chapter or two a day any more. Not to worry, though,I know where this is going and just need to find time to type it all up. Add me to your story alerts, and you will know when I update. And please, review. I love to know what people think.**

**Welcome back kyfrnd!**


	24. Morning

_I wake with the gray light of dawn and it takes me a moment to remember where I am. I look around, and spot my clothes neatly folded on the chair in the corner of the room. It occurs to me that Liz must have slipped in and put them there after I had fallen asleep, and in a strange way, I feel as if I have let her down. What if she needed to talk some more?_

_As I crawl out of the bed, I decide that I will have to go commando for the day. I slip out of the pajama bottoms and put my jeans on. Before I can wonder what to do with my dirty boxers and socks, I hear the crinkle of a plastic bag and discover it underneath my shirt. I smile at Liz's thoughtfulness and put my unmentionables in it. There is also a note stuck to the back of the chair._

_**AJ,**_

_**Go downstairs and you'll have no problem finding the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever you want for breakfast, but please be quiet. Mom just got home around five, and Rick will probably sleep until noon.**_

_**I usually go for a run first thing in the morning, but I will join you for breakfast if I get back in time. If not, I will probably see you at TBIC sooner or later.**_

_**Thanks for last night.**_

_**Love,**_

_**Liz**_

_I smile. She dots the 'i' in her name with a little heart. I briefly wonder if she means anything by closing with the word "Love" but decide it is just wishful thinking on my part._

_Suddenly my bladder tells me I must use the bathroom immediately. I creep down the hallway as quietly as I can, praying that I don't bump into Rick or Mrs. Stabler. Liz seems to think that neither of them will mind my having spent the night, but it would still make for an awkward explanation if they should see me before she has the chance to tell them I am here. Fortunately, neither of them seems to be up and about yet._

_After relieving myself, I wash my face and brush my teeth and then wet my hair and run my fingers through it. I am not vain about my hair, but again I am impressed with the fantastic cut my stylist gave me. In a pinch, I don't even need a comb to look good._

_I return to the guest room and retrieve my keys, wallet, and cell phone and the bag with my remaining clothes in it. Then, as the note suggested, I go downstairs and easily find the kitchen. It doesn't take long to find a bowl, spoon, cereal, and milk, and just as I am starting on my raisin bran, Liz comes in through the back door._

"_Good morning, AJ," she says as she takes a couple of mugs out of the cupboard and starts the coffee. _

_She has her hair done up in a bouncy blonde ponytail and her bangs are plastered to her forehead. A rolled up pink bandana keeps the sweat out of her eyes, but her skin is flushed and moist with perspiration. A damp V has formed on her chest, darkening her heather gray t-shirt, and again my eyes are drawn to her breasts. The sports bra I am sure she must be wearing does nothing to hide her perfect figure, and before I know it, I am wondering whether she is a B or a C cup._

"_Mmmm. Morning." I blink, shake my head, and fake a yawn as if I am still just waking up and hope she doesn't notice that Junior is suddenly ready for some morning calisthenics. When did I become obsessed with breasts anyway?_

"_I'm glad you're up," Liz says. "Give me half an hour and I can give you a ride."_

_The devil on my left shoulder collapses in a fit of laughter while the angel on my right tells him he should be ashamed of himself and admonishes him to get his mind out of the gutter. I feel myself blushing as I can't help but see the double meaning in her words and force myself to concentrate harder than necessary on my raisin bran._

"_Uh, that . . . would be . . . great," I tell her between the spoonfuls of raisin bran I am rapidly shoveling into my mouth to keep from having to talk too much. "But my first appointment is all the way over in Federal Plaza."_

"_Perfect!" she says unexpectedly, "I can drop you off there and then go to the park-and-ride lot for the Staten Island Ferry to see my dad." I choke on the milk I am drinking out of my cereal bowl and spray it all over the table. She pats me on the back and says, "You shouldn't eat so fast."_

_When she is sure I am all right, she gets a cloth out of the sink and wipes up the mess I have made. Then she gets out a bowl, pours some granola in it, gets a container of yogurt out of the fridge and spoons a glob on top of the granola, and selects a banana from the fruit bowl to peel and slice onto her granola and yogurt. The coffee finishes brewing and she pours us each a steaming mug._

"_Cream and sugar?" she asks._

_I close my eyes and wonder why so many foods have been associated with sex. "Yes, please."_

"_AJ, are you all right?"_

_I put a hand to my forehead and lie to her. "I'm fine," I say. "I just have a headache for some reason." It explains my obvious discomfort, and as long as I don't have to move away from the table, everything will be ok._

_Liz moves closer and places a hand on my shoulder. Despite her recent exercise, she still has a fresh, feminine smell, and that does nothing to help my situation. It's all I can do not to moan._

"_Are you sure you're all right?' she asks with concern._

"_I could use some aspirin," I tell her, "or Excedrin, if you have it."_

"_Sure, right away," she says and hurries off._

_I use the time she is away to bring my unruly anatomy under control. First, I think of Consuelo and how disappointed she would be if I gave in to my baser instincts. Then the angel on my shoulder asks me, "What would Elliot think of you lusting after his baby girl?"_

_That's all it takes. Junior stands down immediately. I have seen pictures of Elliot before he was shot, and back then, fear of the pain he could inflict upon me would have been enough to make Junior behave himself. Now, the fear of disappointing him, of giving him a reason to regret what he did for me, is all it takes. I like Elizabeth, a lot, but I'm not going to get fresh with her. She is special, and I don't want to screw up our friendship by moving too fast. Right now, she just needs lots of time to adjust to having her dad back._

_Suddenly, I feel like a heel. I broke up with Candace less than twelve hours ago and already I am scoping out a new girlfriend. I'm not usually such a Lothario, but I just feel so drawn to Liz. I can't help myself, and I'm not sure I want to._

_She returns with the aspirin and I wash them down with my hot coffee, which instantly dissolves the pills and leaves an awful taste in my mouth. Liz laughs at the face I make and asks, "Is my coffee really that bad?"_

"_No, not at all," I tell her, and I explain what happened._

"_Oh, ick," she says, and crosses the kitchen to open the refrigerator. After a minute, she takes out a pitcher full of red liquid. "This should wash away the taste," she says cheerfully as she takes a glass out of the cupboard._

"_What is it?' I ask._

_She smiles. "Cherry Kool-Aid."_

_I sigh. It __**would**__ have to be cherry. Not fruit punch or grape or blue raspberry. No, it __**has**__ to be cherry. It has to be something __**else**__ associated with sex. I accept the offered glass and down it quickly as I try very hard to picture Elliot giving me a disapproving glare. To my surprise, it works, and Junior behaves himself._

"_Are you sure it's no bother taking me into Manhattan?" I ask, wondering if she will find an excuse to withdraw her offer. _

"_Positive," she says. "AJ, if it were a problem, I wouldn't have suggested it." She smiles again, and I know I am whipped. Sooner or later I will have to ask the girl out, but right now, I know I need to give her time. Her life has just been shaken up and she needs time to adjust. Maybe once things settle down to a routine I will see if she wants to go to a movie or something._

"_Ok, as long as you're sure."_

"_I am. All I have planned for the day is to visit my dad," she tells me. "You saw to it that I got home safely last night. The least I can do is to give you a lift into the city."_

_I nod. "Ok, then. Thanks."_

_We talk about yesterday, what Elliot did, and what the doctors said after I left, and somehow, I get around to mentioning Candace. I don't go into detail, but I explain that she made quite a scene when Elliot soiled himself._

_Liz makes a face. "The nurse told me all about it," she says._

_Now I feel ashamed. I never should have taken Candace out there, especially not without Liz's permission. I can't apologize enough, and I tell her we broke up last night._

"_AJ, listen to me," she says. "It might not have been the ideal situation, but her little . . . fit might have been just what Dad needed to bring him around."_

_I know I look confused, because she chuckles at me and goes on to explain, "My dad is a very, very proud man, and that kind of embarrassment would get his temper up. If he was aware of her tantrum, she may have pissed him off just enough to finally make him come around."_

_She reaches across the table and pats my arm. "I think it's very sweet that you think enough of my dad to want your girlfriend to meet him, but don't judge her too harshly. Some people just don't cope well with illness. I mean, there's no denying my brother loves our dad, but he can't even bring himself to wipe the drool off Dad's face or clean around the feeding tube with alcohol once a day. If you really care about this girl, you shouldn't break up with her just because she got a little freaked out."_

_I shake my head and put my hand over hers where it rests on my arm. "That's just it. I don't care about her."_

_Liz's frown tells me that my response surprises her, so now it's my turn to explain what I mean. "We started dating because, well, she's pretty, and she had just broken up with her boyfriend, and I needed a date to a dance. I asked her to go with me, she said yes, and the next thing I knew, she was telling everyone I was her new boyfriend. I couldn't see any reason to deny it, so it . . . became true. I didn't break up with her because of what she did yesterday. That was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm not angry with her, and I don't hate her. In fact, I'm really proud of her for at least trying to help with your dad's exercises, but I still don't care about her the ay I should to justify staying with her."_

_She stares into my eyes for a long moment, which makes me a little uncomfortable. Finally, she nods, and says, "Ok, as long as you're sure that's the truth."_

"_I am," I tell her, though I can't give her the whole truth that I have been fantasizing about her all summer. It's just too soon for that._

_She nods again, and we finish breakfast in silence. After we eat, she goes upstairs and takes a shower while I sit in the living room and jot down questions for the interviews I have scheduled today. She is true to her word, and we are out of the house within thirty minutes._

_Liz pulls over to the curb and drops me at Federal Plaza. "I'll call you on your cell if there's any change with Dad," she says._

_I nod. "I'll have my phone off, so just leave a message."_

"_Ok." We both fall quiet for a moment and then she asks, "Will I, uh, see you later today, at TBIC, maybe?"_

_I try to figure out whether she is hinting that she wants me to come by or just wants to know what my plans are for the day. I decide to be vague._

"_I don't know. I have three interviews scheduled, and I like to write things up as soon as possible after meeting the people. If I do make it out, it will be later in the evening."_

_She grins. "Well, if you do decide to come out, give me a call and if I am there, I'll wait for you."_

_I can't help smiling back at her. She definitely wants to see more of me, and I want to see more of her, so if there's any chance of making it out to Staten Island today, I'm going._

"_Will do. See you later," I say, and close the car door. I wave as she drives off, and she toots the horn and flutters a hand out the window at me. I grin like an idiot and continue waving until she is out of sight._

* * *

Sorry for the long delay, life has been crazy. I am going out of town for at least a week, so expect another wait. I love reviews. Don't make me beg. 


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